


Born to Make You Happy

by objectlesson



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Embarrassment, First Time, Fluff, Happy Ending, Humiliation, Laundry, M/M, Masturbation, Servitude kink, Slow Burn, Teen Angst, The X Factor Bungalow, The X Factor Era, infidelity (Hannah)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 01:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8267096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Harry makes a quiet vow to himself that he will be the very best girlfriend Louis has ever had, even if he never actually gets to be Louis’s girlfriend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Oh goodness, here's another one! I literally CANNOT GET ENOUGH of writing X Factor Era fic, this is one of like four upcoming stories that all take place before wmyb even comes out? I just really love all the raw, new possibility they're just TEEMING WITH during this era. 
> 
> Again, thank you SO MUCH and from the BOTTOM OF MY NEWLY CORRUPTED HEART for making my transition into this fandom so wonderful. I cannot even begin to express my surprise and gratitude. I've been writing fan fiction for over ten years and I have NEVER felt so enthusiastically and genuinely welcomed into a fandom; I know Directioners and Larries especially have a bad reputation, but let me be the first to tell you that I have experienced nothing but positivity and encouragement since joining the fandom. It's been am absolute blast and I've never had so much fun writing fic, so thank you, thank you, thank you <3 This is all for you. 
> 
> A few things about this story: Louis doesn't break up with Hannah before things start happening with Harry, so there's an awkward crossover period of time between these two relationships. I imagine things must have been very strange and confusing for Louis at this time, and although I think he was and is a great guy and by no means a Cheater with a capitol C, I tend to characterize this young version pf him as someone who acts on feeling/impulse before neatly wrapping up prior situations/relationships. I know that makes some people uncomfortable, so I just wanted to throw a warning out there. 
> 
> Secondly, there's a scene where Harry jacks off into one of Louis's shirts and doesn't ask him/talk to him about it first. I thought adding a tag for dub con seemed a little extreme, and creating a tag for dub con laundry masturbation seemed a little ridiculous, so I'm just putting the warning here, in case that freaks anyone out. 
> 
> Lastly, this story is totally inspired by Harry's weird/well documented laundry/servitude/domesticity kink. That being said, it's not ABOUT THAT, per say. They're young babies in it and there's basically no discussion of kink negotiation because that just felt unrealistic to have a sixteen year old and an eighteen year old having mature discussions about power and kink, That being said, I trust that these characters had those discussions on the topic LATER, so please just trust me that everything is consensual, even if it's not explicitly addressed. 
> 
> thank you, enjoy! another Britney spears title from me because she's my hero. Also, as usual I love my beta and friend Hurdy Gurdy whose the sweetest and most dedicated editor and eats my Larry up even when it's the middle of the night and I send her thousands of words riddled in typos. She's my other hero.

It’s funny, really, that only a few months after Harry realizes he fancies boys, he ends up getting put in a band with four of them. 

It’s funny and a little ironic and a lot traumatizing, actually. Because the thing is, Harry might have _realized_ sooner than a month prior to auditioning for the X-Factor that he fancied boys if there had been any _remotely attractive_ ones in Holmes Chapel, but there just weren’t. At home, his attraction to boys could remain theoretical, limited to wanks over movie stars he would never meet, the airbrushed, golden boys from magazines and the telly. 

But not anymore. Now, he’s stuck with four boys, and they are _all_ at least objectively attractive. 

Then there’s Louis. And, well. Harry’s attraction to boys is certainly more than _theoretical_ , now. 

There’s probably some fairy tale he’s forgetting the name of, about being deprived of something and then suddenly swimming in it, swimming and drowning. There’s probably a moral to this story, but Harry is sixteen and cannot be bothered too much by morals, not when he is bothered so very much by _other_ , more pressing, matters. 

Like, it’s hard to have morals when one has hormones. When one is plagued by inconvenient hard ons and stomach tugs so low and deep they’re nauseating. It’s hard for Harry to worry about forgotten fairy tales or the terror of drowning or morals or _anything at all_ when Louis Tomlinson exists, and most miraculously, exists in his immediate _life_. In his band. Harry still shudders in thrilled delight when he even thinks about being in a band with Louis Tomlinson. 

Louis is improbably, unfairly attractive. He’s two years older and has the most even tan Harry has ever seen, like he spent all his days in Doncaster playing footie in the sun shirtless, sweat shining between his shoulders blades. He’s absolutely _hilarious_ , his voice sounds like a wind chime, and his smile is crooked and terrible and crinkles up around his eyes so spectacularly that Harry feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him every time it happens. He uses his very small hands to carefully tuck his very soft fringe of very chestnut hair out of his eyes, and when he’s not yelling, he speaks very softly, and Harry, quite frankly, has never wanted to kiss someone so badly in his entire life. It might be a manageable desire if Louis was indifferent to him, but they get too close too quickly, and only days after getting put in a band with Louis, Harry’s life is reduced to the inescapable chemical fire of aimless, boundless longing. 

To make everything more confusing, they’re instantaneously _weird_ together. 

Harry has always been a flirtatious and physical person, demanding cuddles from his mum well into his adolescence, dropping into his friends’ laps, and hanging around their necks and pawing all over them whenever he’s even a little drunk. It has never really _meant_ anything; he just likes to be close to people that he likes, that’s all. 

But with Louis, it’s _weird_. Perhaps because he likes him _so very much_ , which means that he likes to be so very close to him it edges into what some people (certainly his mates back in Holmes Chapel) would refer to as being _clingy_. Suffocating, Gemma once called him, prying his arms off her waist for the hundredth time when she was trying to do homework. He was used to that, people getting exasperated by the way he was always nuzzling into their space, always capturing them in in a tangle of gangly limbs and going limp so they couldn’t escape. He’s used to getting shoved off. 

Right from the very beginning, though, Louis _doesn’t_ shove him off. Doesn’t even try. Just pushes right back into him, disentangles his arm, and throws it around Harry’s shoulders so they can press together at a less awkward angle, looking down at him fondly like he’s glad to have met another lad so unconcerned with casual, idle contact. 

Harry would feel hugely guilty that it wasn’t so casual or idle for him were he capable of remembering fairy tales or considering morals or doing anything save for alternating between melting and swooning. But he’s not capable, so he only feels the slightest twinge of guilt, far away, insignificant. _I’ll worry about it later_ , he tells himself, snuggling up against Louis on the couch at his stepdad’s bungalow, where he and the boys are crashing for two weeks of quality bonding time before performing in front of the judges again. He’s too warm, and he feels drunk off the smell of Louis’s cologne, but instead of freeing himself to breathe properly, he gleefully, willfully, drowns in it all. 

In his defense, Zayn is pressed up against his other side, just as closely. The only difference is that physical contact with Zayn is _authentically_ casual and idle, where every second he touches Louis is charged, bright and electric with potential. It’s not like Harry has ulterior motives. He _doesn’t._ He doesn’t have motives at all. Louis has a girlfriend and is presumably, (although somewhat surprisingly?) straight. Harry doesn’t _actually_ think their close, fast, perhaps alarmingly parasitic friendship is actually going to _go_ anywhere beyond this, and if he were a less self-destructively optimistic person, he wouldn’t even _hope_ for it. He tries to be happy with just _this_ , Louis’s chin resting on his head, digging painfully into him every time he opens his mouth to shout commentary or offer advice to the woefully idiotic horror movie heroines onscreen. 

He tries to be satisfied that Louis does not pull away whenever he hides his face in his chest, inhaling greedily while he pretends to be a shred more affected by jump scares than he truly is. It’s all very exciting, anyway, even this. The heat of Louis’s body, the reverberation of his laugh, and the fake screams rumbling through both of them. 

_S’not so bad_ , Harry thinks, letting himself smile privately into Louis’s hoodie in the dark, _to drown in the sun_. 

—-

Hannah, the girlfriend. She’s a total mystery to Harry, this foundation-caked blonde girl who looks perfect in every single one of her Facebook pictures, tucked under Louis’s arm, kissing Louis with puckered lips, mascara in her lashes as she bats them for the camera. If she had gone to school with Harry, she would have been very popular, nice, and well liked, the whole lot. It doesn't seem preposterous that a very pretty girl like Hannah would get to date a very pretty boy like Louis, but. The idea of Louis dating a girl at all seems a little preposterous, in and of itself. 

Harry tries not to make assumptions about what people might like based on the way they act. After all, he’s at least half gay, and he’s not the type who loves musicals or calls girls _dahling_ in drawl, but still. When he first saw Louis, in line during auditions and later in the toilets when they first properly met and talked, he felt a series of short, zinging thrills in his chest because, this boy. He was _beautiful_ , and he was _real_ , and he was, or at least he _seemed,_ gay. Harry was, for the first time in his life, conversing with an attractive teenage boy, a boy at a singing competition with a high, clear voice and wrists that were so soft and expressive as he gesticulated, their bodies turned in toward each other, toes of their shoes bumping as they made small talk that was technically small but felt enormous, monumental. Harry didn’t even think that was possible with straight guys, so. He doesn’t like to assume, but he assumed. 

He apparently assumed _wrong._

Louis mentions her unceremoniously and in passing on their first night at the bungalow. They’re playing FIFA, and he’s bragging about how good he is, explaining, “Only one who can beat me is me girlfriend, but even then that’s, like, twenty percent of the time. M’actually a prodigy of sorts, Payno, so consider it an honor to even touch this controller when’m done with it.” 

“Maybe in _Doncaster_ you’re a prodigy, but I really don’t think you stand a chance in the big leagues, mate,” Liam fires back, but Harry only half hears him. He is very confused, and it is making him partially deaf. 

After several seconds of unsuccessful processing, he mumbles, “Wait, what?” from the couch, where he’s sprawled with his head in Louis’s lap, feet kicked up onto the wall. 

Louis looks down at him in surprise, sharp brows arched over the bluest eyes, and Harry pouts because it doesn’t seem possible that someone could have so many angles in their face but still seem so soft. “Was just telling Liam that he was sorely mistaken and gravely misjudging me and had a night full of agony and shame to look forward to.” 

“No, before that,” Harry explains, blinking slowly. “You said you had a girlfriend?” 

“Hannah, yep. Only one who ever beats me at FIFA,” Louis explains, pursing his lips. 

“Hannah,” Harry repeats, the syllables seeming strange and stale in his mouth. “Do you really?” 

Louis narrows his eyes at the screen and doesn’t look down at Harry again. “I do, want me to show you my special, county-issued girlfriend license or what?” He sounds like he has told this joke before, and Harry wonders with a brief pang of regret if Louis has been, like, _teased_ seeming gay. Maybe he’s not the first to have assumed wrongly. 

Something deflates a little in Harry’s chest, and he sits up, suddenly feeling quite foolish for having his head in Louis’s lap. 

He spends the next five minutes stealing glances at Louis from the arm of the couch, chewing on the side of his knuckle, and just _wondering_ because, really. It’s harder than it should be to picture Louis with a girl, and not just because it makes his insides twist up with stupid, childish jealousy. _Maybe it’s sort of like an alibi. Because he doesn’t trust us yet, doesn’t know we won’t give him a hard time about being gay. Maybe he’s lying to save his reputation. People do that._

Or maybe Harry is just being a pitiful, close-minded sore loser.

Louis notices the dark storm cloud of sorts that’s brewing over Harry, and after the next game ends, he deposits his controller in Niall’s lap and crawls over to Harry. “Who kicked your puppy?” he asks, poking him in the cheek. “Are you sad because I just murdered your new friend Liam?” 

“Critically injured!” Liam shouts from the floor, and Louis kicks him, eyes still glittering and blue and locked on Harry. 

“Oi! Corpses don’t talk, Payno, anyway I was asking _Harry_ , wasn’t I?” 

And the storm cloud dissipates, because Louis is pure sunshine, and whether or not he has a girlfriend, Harry is hopelessly infatuated with him. A slow dopey smile spreads on his face, and he lets Louis pull him into a rib-cracking hug and decides he just won’t think about the girlfriend. 

—-

 

Right away, Harry just wants to _do_ things for Louis. Anything, really, not _just_ sink to his knees and spend the better part of a day sucking until his jaw hurts (though he’s had more than a few good wanks fantasizing wistfully about such a fate). He obviously _can’t_ do that, and he can’t _kiss_ Louis, he can’t hold his hand and trace all the lines and creases through his palm, reading a future where their lives are indelibly twined. So, he starts doing what he can get away with. 

Tea is the first thing. 

They’ve all just come in from the pool deck, dripping and shivering and draped in damp towels. Louis shakes his hair out like a dog, chlorinated droplets landing on Harry’s lips, and he licks them away instinctively. “M’absolutely _freezing_ ,” he announces, hip checking Harry and eying him sidelong from beneath his lashes. “Any of you lads want to join me in the showers?” 

It’s a joke, but Harry’s stomach still clenches up painfully before dissolving into butterflies. Harry badly wants to make Louis happy, and he badly wants to join Louis in the shower. He doesn’t think _actually_ joining him in the shower would make him happy, though, so he scrambles to think of other things he wants to do, things he _can_ do, while Louis and Niall fight over who gets first shower, cackling in the hallway. 

He lets himself fantasize idly about a life where he gets to do that sort of thing with Louis. Peel the wet trunks down his thighs and toss them into the washing machine, kissing cold skin before running Louis a steaming bath with something nice in it, Epsom salts like his mum always did for him in the winter, maybe. And while Louis soaked, Harry would tidy up their apartment, hang up the wet towel, and make them both tea so they could have something to sip while they snuggled up on the couch to— 

Harry snaps out of his daydream, realizing that he’s in his stepdad’s bungalow, with its impressive tea collection and the kettle on the stove. By the time Niall triumphantly kicks Louis out of the bathroom and commandeers the shower, Harry is already boiling water. 

He wants to make Louis tea. He also knows it’s weird to _just_ make _Louis_ tea, though, so he pops his head into the den, raising his eyebrows at the rest of the lads, sans Niall, who is singing a tune of joyous gloating from the bathroom. “Anyone want tea? M’putting the kettle on,” he says lightly. He might look directly at Louis when he says it. 

Louis raises his eyebrows and immediately answers, “ _Always_.” The word sends a jolt of excitement up Harry’s spine, and he shivers, nodding as he watches Louis stretch languidly on the couch, water still dripping from his hair in rivulets. “Have to say, though, you’re getting into dangerous territory, mate. I literally _always_ want tea, so don’t ask if you’re not fully prepared to wait on me.” He bats his lashes. 

Harry’s cheeks get warm, so he turns away, feeling a little weak-kneed at the prospect of waiting on Louis Tomlinson. “Noted,” he says, voice low. “And you lads? Want tea?” 

He takes everyone’s order, mentally cataloging what Liam and Zayn want before turning back to Louis. “How do you take it?” he asks him, thrilled by the double entendre, thrilled by the way Louis catches it and cocks his head, grinning that lopsided, perfect grin.

“With lots of sugar,” he purrs, rolling onto his tummy, “babycakes.” 

“Lots of sugar in mine, too,” Liam adds, missing literally everything that’s happening around him, which is both exasperating and a relief. If there _is_ anything to miss, Harry reminds himself. After all, Harry isn’t very good at knowing the difference between _joking_ and _flirting_ ; they have so much in common, and Louis confuses him, makes him shortsighted and indisposed and stupid and calls him babycakes even though he has a girlfriend. 

He toes Zayn in the shin. “And you?” 

Zayn makes a face like he’s considering saying what he perceives to be the _cool_ answer (Harry isn’t sure why Zayn thinks drinking something black and bitter is somehow cooler than drinking it sweet, but Zayn generally knows better about these things, so Harry keeps quiet) when Louis claps his hand over Zayn’s mouth. “He would like it with lots of sugar, too.” 

Zayn shoves him off. “Sugar please. Thanks, Haz.” 

“Right, sugar for everyone, got it,” Harry mumbles. 

Louis is looking at him, the corner of his mouth twisted up into a half-smile, his eyes glittering like he’s scheming something, like he’s _plotting_. Harry can hear the kettle beginning to whine, and he’s about to turn on his heel and save it before it really starts to scream when Louis says, “You make a lovely housewife, don’t you?” 

Harry stops in his tracks. It would be a setup from any other boy, he thinks, an attempt to goad him into defending his masculinity, into saying, _I’m not, make your own tea, you tosser_. He can practically hear it in Liam’s voice, for example, but he thinks it’s _different_ , coming from Louis. It’s not a setup, it’s…an observation. Maybe even an invitation. (He’s not sure, flirting and joking look so much alike.)

“Mmmhmm,” he answers honestly. “I even cook.” 

Louis chews the inside of his cheek, beaming. “Look at you. A real catch. M’gonna get you an apron, one with frills and pockets.” 

Ugh. It shouldn’t make Harry hard, but his cock twitches in his still damp swim trunks, something that should be impossible. The kettle lets out a piercing cry, and he shoots a glance over his shoulder at Louis as he goes to flick the burner off. 

In the kitchen, he braces his hands on the counter and carefully counts to ten, waiting for his semi to shrink so that he can put every ounce of effort into making the best cup of tea Louis Tomlinson has ever had in his entire life. 

—-

Louis is terrifically loud and messy and takes up an enormous amount of space, and it’s Harry’s responsibility to make sure no one burns down his stepdad’s bungalow, so it’s actually quite _easy_ to get away with trailing after Louis and cleaning up after him. Harry tries not to think about how strange and possibly pathetic it is that doing things for Louis (separating his clean laundry from his dirty clothes and throwing everything with grass stains in the hamper, making him tea upwards of three times a day, watching with wide, complacent eyes as Louis sips it and groans and goes _on_ and _on_ about how superb his tea-making skills are) pleases him _so_ much. He knows it might be a replacement for other things he wants and can’t have, but it doesn’t _feel_ like a replacement, not really. It feels like an extension or an elaboration. Connected inextricably to the way he wants _all_ of Louis: his teeth at his pulse and his hands on his skin and his dirty laundry, his sugar dissolving to nothingness in the heat of his Yorkshire. 

Harry _loves_ taking care of Louis, loves the way they fall into these roles easily, Louis somehow picking up on his genuine desire to please him without resentment or expectation of reciprocation, taking him up on his every offer and even ordering him to do things, _Hazza, forgot me towel, mind grabbing it? S’lying at the foot of the bed unless you hung it up already, or If you’re gonna do wash, will you throw in some stuff for me? Zayn rubbed jam into me jumper._ Harry is always delighted to act on these requests, _too_ delighted, so much so that he wants to crowd Louis up against the wall every time he asks and tell him, _yes, yes, of course. What else? Anything else? Just tell me. Tell me what to do._

The thing is, Harry feels like he’s _meant_ to do this, cosmically _designed_ to orbit Louis Tomlinson, to act as a buffer between his wild, abrasive tumult and the world around him. He feels like there’s no better purpose for him, like he’s just built to take Louis, to keep him from burning too brightly and tearing a hole in the fiber of the universe. _Tear a hole in me, instead_ , he thinks, and he _knows_ it’s crazy. He knows he’s being dramatic, that considering one’s cosmic design in relation to a person he met only mere _weeks_ ago is foolish and childish and also probably _dangerous_ , especially when said person happens to have a girlfriend back home.

An actual _real_ girlfriend, rather than a story invented to draw attention away from Louis’s unabashed flamboyancy. Harry is sure of it now; Louis has mentioned her enough times with enough consistency that she _has_ to be at least a real person in Louis’s real life. It’s solidified for him when Liam brings up her Facebook page one day during dinner. Louis has been teasing Liam for the better part of an hour, and although Liam is trying very hard to retaliate, he’s not half as quick as Louis, and as a result, he’s been falling steadily behind, beaten down and a little flushed because he’s the type of person who gets _visibly_ frustrated, which is probably why Louis singles him out so much. Drastic times call for drastic measures, so Liam grabs his laptop and begins heatedly searching Louis’s Facebook for something to give him a hard time about. 

Things do not go as planned, so instead he ends up pursing his lips and nodding slowly, approvingly, as he scrolls through her pictures. “Your girlfriend’s right fit, mate. I’m kind of surprised, actually.” 

“What does _that_ mean,” Louis says, wrinkling his nose up and attempting to wrench the laptop away from Liam, who might be half as quick, but he’s twice as strong, so he maintains his fierce grip as Louis bats at him ineffectively. “Did you think I wouldn’t have a fit girlfriend?” 

“No, s’not that, it’s just, you never, like, _brag_ about her or anything. Or show us pictures. If I had a fit girlfriend, I’d be making sure everyone knew it,” Liam explains. Zayn and Niall have both left their chairs to crowd behind him, their eyes narrowed as they join in this whole, stupid Hannah-loving fest. Harry stays stubbornly put, pushing his food around with his fork, eyes decidedly fixed on his plate even though he’s not hungry, not anymore. 

“And that, Liam, is the difference between you and me,” Louis says lightly, walking over to Harry and winding his arms around his shoulders from behind in favor of looking at his own girlfriend on Liam’s laptop. “I’m perfectly comfortable with myself and don’t _need_ to tell everyone about my girlfriend.” 

“Aw, look,” Niall chides, turning the laptop around on the table so the screen is facing Louis and Harry, Harry who _was_ feeling better until he was forced to look at a slightly younger Louis bending to kiss a very pretty blonde girl on the lips, their hands obscured by the camera flash. “You take mirror selfies together and everything.” 

Harry’s stomach clenches around a pang of jealousy, silly and unfair but so fierce it’s painful, all the same. Louis squeezes him for a second before reaching decidedly for the laptop and closing it with a snap. “Ugh, my hair looked terrible back then. Never lemme do it like that again, Haz.” 

He does not bring up Hannah for the rest of the night, even after Liam makes a suggestion or ten or twenty that she’s probably going to dump him for someone more appreciative of how fit she is, someone such as himself. Harry’s not sure, but most of his mates back home, even the ones who were _very_ comfortable with themselves, at least had _some_ type of reaction to their friends joking about fucking their girlfriends. It was, like, an obligatory response. But Louis just brushes it off every time, rolling his eyes and throwing a half-hearted, _In your dreams, Payno_ , in Liam’s direction, his arm resting casually on the back of the couch behind Harry, fingers absentmindedly dusting across his shoulder every few seconds while they watched Zayn and Niall play FIFA. 

Harry chews the inside of his lip, quietly (and perhaps foolishly) motivated by Louis’s almost-silence about his girlfriend. _Maybe she doesn’t make his tea exactly how he likes it,_ he wonders. _Maybe he doesn’t know that he deserves exactly, exactly what he wants._

Louis cracks up at something Niall says, just breaks out into an ear-splitting, hysterical gale of laughter before dropping his face to Harry’s shoulder, hiccuping and gasping. And even after seeing the picture of him kissing Hannah, Harry feels terribly warm inside, the thrill of it spreading between his lungs and crowding them so that he can’t even breathe properly. _I could do it better_ , he thinks. Just a reckless, flickering thought born from that spreading warmth. _I could give him everything._

Harry makes a quiet, sleepy vow to himself that night that he will be the very best girlfriend Louis has ever had, even if he never _actually_ gets to be Louis’s girlfriend. 

—-

Harry wakes with a start, heart rabbiting in his chest while he struggles to remember where he is. The room materializes slowly in the dark, Niall asleep on the couch, his shock of blond hair a bleary white smudge reflected in the television screen, somewhat illuminated by an inexplicable eerie glow. Harry doesn’t know where it’s coming from, so he squints helplessly, willing his heart to slow. 

Sleeping bag crinkling around him as he rolls over, Harry remembers with a sudden, stark clarity that he’s at the bungalow, sprawled out slumber-party style with his new mates, with his _band_. With _Louis_ , who should be right beside him but isn’t, mysteriously gone from his own tattered sleeping bag, which lies in a sad ruin next to Harry, cold and unzipped. 

“Haz?” his voice cuts through the dark, like he could tell Harry was looking for him. “Sorry if I woke you up.” He’s sitting cross-legged on one of the chairs flanking the couch, his computer open on his lap, face illuminated in blue light. He’s beautiful, so beautiful that Harry’s eyes sting, and he hides his own face in his pillow for a moment so he can get his reflexive grinning out before he turns back to Louis. 

“No,” He answers hoarsely. “You didn’t. Just. S’hard to sleep, on the floor. M’either too cold or too warm, and my hips hurt.” 

“Tell me about it,” Louis whispers, making a face and squinting at Harry in the dark. “My back is killing me, s’why I couldn’t sleep. Like my spine’s just digging into the floor. I’m a man of luxury, I suppose.” He stretches, the line of his throat looking so sharp in the screen-light, bobbing as he swallows. The only sharpness at all when the rest of him is so unbelievably soft looking. Harry loves that he’s like this sometimes, that the same quick-witted, sharp-tongued boy who wore Liam’s will to dust earlier in the evening is the same one here before him now, sweatshirt sleeves pulled down over his tiny hands, fluffy wing of hair poking out under the hem of a knit beanie, glasses reflecting in the dark. Harry wants to pull him into his lap, he wants to lace their fingers together, hidden in the pocket of Louis’s sweatshirt, he wants to kiss his cheek, his palm, his forehead . His heart aches with the exertion of wanting it so very, very badly. 

“You could sleep in the bedroom, you know,” Harry mumbles, blinking slowly. So far, they’ve been using his old bedroom to change in, no one is sleeping in there since it’s so much more fun to all crash together in sleeping bags out in the living room. Or, at least it was for a few days, but Harry’s body is feeling it now, stiff and tender from the floor. Still, if anyone’s getting the bed, he wants it to be Louis. It seems stupid to condemn someone so soft to a floor so hard. He yawns, feeling very confused and inarticulate and bruised with yearning. 

“Then I’d be alone,” Louis says, shrugging. 

Zayn rolls over, grumbling a nearly inaudible but still emphatic, “Shuttap,” into his pillow. 

Harry and Louis grin at each other for a moment, eyes wide, caught, guilty. Harry loves moments like this, things that are shared between them and them only, private moments he wants to write on slips of paper and fold into origami fish, since a fish is the only origami shape he knows how to make. He wants a whole sea of these fish, and it’s _stupid_ , it’s so impractical, but it’s the middle of the night, and Louis’s eyes are so infuriatingly blue. 

They hold their breath for a moment until Zayn starts snoring again. Louis points to the hallway, whispering, “Let’s at least go to the bedroom if we’re gonna talk?” 

Nodding, Harry disentangles himself from his sleeping bag, tiptoeing out of the pillow and blanket mess strewn about the floor. Louis shuts his laptop, casting them both in a heavy, forgiving darkness. Harry doesn’t know _why_ , but the dark seems to make everything seem louder, the shift of his bare feet against the carpet, his clumsy attempts to _not_ knock into the coffee table, his nervous, fevered breathing. 

Louis finds his hand in the dark, though, and then he goes a little deaf. The blood pounds in his ears as Louis guides him into the hallway, holding onto him even as he opens the bedroom door and drags Harry inside after him. “Oi,” he sighs, collapsing on the bed as Harry locks the door, like that will somehow keep them from waking the other boys. “S’not the most comfortable bed in the world, but it beats hardwood.” 

Harry’s old room smells strange and nostalgic, like stale dust and the ghost of sunscreen, summer memories adhered like cobwebs to the walls. He’s not sure if he should sit on the floor or the stained beanbag chair or the bed until Louis scoots over, making room for him. “Come here,” he says evenly. 

The certainty of it sends a jolt down Harry’s spine, heat pooling in his gut as he clambers down beside Louis, brushing up against the heat of his body. “Very gracious host,” Louis says, searching Harry’s face. “Offering me this swanky bed of yours.” 

“The swankiest bed you’ve ever slept in, I bet,” Harry teases. “My mum made me _swear_ I wouldn’t let anyone sleep in her bedroom, the one with the queen-sized mattress. I know most people would probably do it anyway and just not tell their mum, but I, like…feel really weird breaking promises like that.” 

Louis shrugs. “Me, too. When me mum trusts me with something, I take that seriously. Like, I would never want to give her a reason to not trust me. ” 

Harry nods, thinking that there are so many things about Louis he loves, so many small, easily overlooked quirks and kindnesses that he has just never _seen_ before, not up close, not in real life. He wants to keep squinting into the sun until his eyes adjust a little bit, until he can stand it. Or at least he wants to incinerate trying. He doesn’t care which; Louis makes him desperate, reckless. “I really like how good you are to your mum,” he says after a moment, meaning it. 

Louis smiles hugely, nose and eyes crinkling up like he wasn’t expecting Harry to say something like that. “Well, thank you, Harold. My mum is amazing, and so are you.” 

Harry can’t help it, he grins so hard his cheeks kind of hurt. He keeps looking at Louis’s lips, the flicker of them as Louis wets them with his tongue, the flash of his teeth just behind them, so many lovely things he can’t stop staring at, noticing. “You know what’s not amazing?” Louis adds after a second. 

“Liam’s comebacks?” Harry offers. 

“Well, _yes_ ,” Louis says, snorting. “But also, whatever your floor did to my back. I feel a little bit like I got hit by a car, do you think the X-Factor will pay for a masseuse?” 

“I give really good back rubs,” Harry says before thoroughly thinking it over. He holds up a hand between them and flexes his fingers, as if demonstrating how very good he is at back rubs on the air between them, which is suddenly electric with tension. He swallows, cheeks hot, palms prickling with sweat. “If you were perhaps interested in a back rub.”

Louis inhales very slowly and raggedly, before pushing the air out again in an almost pained-sounding sigh. “As… _divine_ as that sounds, I would never make you do that. You already make me tea all the time and let me sleep on the bed. You’re like the perfect host. I’m not gonna make you _massage_ me,” he says, voice a little shaky. 

Harry wants to know _why_ it’s shaky, wants to know why Louis isn’t completely and totally in control. There have to be _reasons_ for these things. “You’re not making me do anything. I _offered_ , didn’t I?” 

“Sure. But still, I’d feel weird. Like I was taking advantage or something.” 

Harry’s heart is racing. When he woke up in the middle of the night, he wasn’t expecting that he’d end up lying on his own bed in the bungalow, trying to convince Louis Tomlinson to let him rub his back. It seems totally absurd, and he’s half-worried he’s dreaming, but he’s gonna make this a _good_ dream, if he can. He shakes his head rapidly, already hopping out of bed so he can grab the bottle of lotion he knows is in the bathroom medicine cabinet. “You’re not. I _want_ to, I _like_ giving back rubs.” 

All of Louis’s certainty is gone; he’s sitting up on the bed, shoulders bunched tightly as he squirms around, picking at his jumper, adjusting the sleeves over his wrists and cuffing them so they aren’t too long. “I mean, if you _want_ to, I’m not going to say no. But, like. Please don’t do anything you don’t actually want to do.” 

“I want to rub your back, Louis,” Harry says, as plainly and obviously as possible, without letting it show that he’s fucking _hungry_ for it, _trembling_ with the possibility of getting his hands on Louis’s bare skin, of feeling all the places where he’s tight and sore and knotted up. He pokes his tongue into his cheek, inhaling through his nose before he adds, “M’gonna get some stuff, hold on.”

“Well, alright then,” Louis says. “Bring on the back rub, babycakes.” 

Harry grabs the lotion from the bathroom, grinning a wild, uncontrollable grin the whole way, heart thudding itself to near explosion on the inside of his ribcage. When he comes back, Louis hasn’t moved. He’s still sitting there on the foot of the bed, bolt upright, chewing on the inside of his cheek, eyes wide. Harry sits down beside him eagerly, drawing his feet up onto the bed and folding his knees. 

“So how do we do this?” Louis asks, sounding _nervous_ , and Harry is legitimately concerned that his own chest might expand so wide he’ll detach from the Earth’s surface and float away, burning up in the atmosphere.

“Do you, like, not trade back rubs with your friends at home?” he teases. 

“No, not regularly. This is a very new friendship ritual for me, Harry, you should be honored,” he explains, righting his shoulders and squaring his back. “Here it is. My injured back. Do with it what you will.” 

Harry snorts. “Well, maybe you can lie on your stomach, actually? And take your shirt off. I brought lotion, don’t want to get it all over your shirt.” 

“Look at you, all professional. If we lose the X-Factor and you’re disenchanted with show business, you could open up your own salon. Call it Hazzy Endings or something brilliant like that,” Louis suggests, voice muffled as takes off his glasses and beanie and tugs his jumper over his head, followed by his tee shirt. The revelation of skin is quick and unceremonious but Harry’s mouth still waters from it, breath catching even though he's seen Louis shirtless every day since they came here. It feels _different_ now, though, since they’re alone together, whispering in the dark. His eyes linger on the dips of Louis’s collar bones, the soft, padded curve of his belly. He’s never wanted to put his mouth anywhere so badly in his life; his teeth _itch_ with it. 

Louis flops onto his stomach. “Have at me.” 

Harry feels like he’s dying. 

He takes a deep breath, squeezing a few generous pumps of lotion into his hands as he stares greedily at Louis’s back, the lean planes of muscle framing his spine, the dip before the plump curve of his ass. He warms the lotion between his palms for a few seconds before tentatively alighting them on Louis’s scapulae. 

Louis flinches, breath coming out in a hard huff. “Too cold?” Harry asks. 

“No,” Louis says. “Just. I don’t know. This is a bit weird.” 

Harry digs his thumbs in, already dizzy with how hot Louis’s skin is, how smooth. His cock is chubbing up in his pants, and he shouldn’t be getting hard touching Louis, who has a girlfriend, but he can’t stop now. It’s too late. “Weird how? Please don’t tell me something disappointing, like it makes you uncomfortable to let another boy touch you. I’ve been holding you to a higher standard than the rest of them.” 

Louis lets out a long sigh as Harry drags his palms down from his shoulders to the waistband of his joggers, their skin sliding together so easily, smooth and molten. “No,” Louis whispers, “it’s not that. Just. Uhhh—” he cuts himself off, melting as Harry kneads circles into his lower back. “You feel brilliant.” 

Harry’s heart is high in his throat; he’s stupid and cloudy with arousal, and he doesn’t even _think_ about it when he says, “Does Hannah do this for you?” voice the slightest bit _smug_ , like this is a challenge. He’s probably going crazy, but that’s not his fault, _Louis_ is half-naked under him, Louis and his perfect back. 

Louis laughs, nose crinkling up. “Definitely not. I told you, I don’t trade back rubs with my friends at home.” 

“Not even with your girlfriend?” Harry asks breathlessly, hands sliding up over Louis’s shoulders, working out the tight spots on either side of his neck with careful fingers. 

Louis shrugs. “Nope. We’re not that type of couple, the soppy kind. We just hang out, like normal, you know.” 

Harry does not know. He doesn’t know what normal couples are supposed to be like, he only knows how _he_ would be if he were Louis’s girlfriend, and he would rub his back every fucking night, he wouldn’t be able to _stop_ looking for ways to touch him. “You could have fooled me,” he says. “With that very soppy picture of you two kissing in a mirror. Very MySpace.” 

“Shut up,” Louis snickers, reaching behind him and swatting the air playfully, missing Harry if he was trying to get him at all. “Was her idea.” 

The next few minutes are quiet, save for a few tiny, life-ruining moans Louis lets escape, and the sexiest, breathiest mewl when Harry drags his thumbs over the tightest spot, right under the wing of Louis’s left shoulder blade. Harry tries to work the tension out, but he also indulges himself, feeling Louis thoroughly and greedily, loving the way his palms splay so wide over his waist, cover so much skin. He’s drunk on it by the time Louis says something, jolting him out of the haze. “You’re really quite good at that, weren’t lying,” he mumbles, voice a sleepy smudge in the night. “M’falling asleep you have me so—-,” he gestures in the air, wrist limp as he lets his arm flop back down to his side. 

Harry idly draws patterns on his back with just his finger tips, light and teasing so Louis shivers. “Wouldn’t lie about that,” he says. 

“Thank you,” Louis says after a moment. “Can I sleep in the bed?” 

“Mmmhmm,” Harry says, reluctantly letting his fingers sweep down Louis’s spine one more time before he wrenches himself away, struggling tremendously to not dip down and press a series of kisses to the perfect dimples in Louis’s lower back. _God_. His hands are shaking as he clasps them in front of him, his cock so hard it’s throbbing, an obscene bulge in his threadbare black briefs. “Night, Lou,” he whispers, tiptoeing out of the room so he can go wank guiltily in the bathroom. 

Louis murmurs something wordless, then rolls over to sleep. 

—-

They don’t talk about it the next day. Harry can hardly meet Louis’s eyes over breakfast, not after bringing himself off in the bathroom the night prior, mind a wreck of guilty, desperate fantasies: straddling Louis’s delectable ass and grinding against it until he shoots off all over his back, sucking on Louis’s fingers before guiding them between his own thighs, showing him how to touch him right, how to open him up. Letting Louis do whatever he wants, whatever he wants _at all_ to him, use him like a doll, like a toy. He came almost terrifyingly hard last night, fast and blinding and breathless, like getting struck by lightening and incinerating to ash. But now, in the pale gold light of morning, Harry feels _terrible_. Like the world’s worst friend, getting his hands all over Louis when Louis didn’t even _know_ what it was doing to him. 

He fries up toad in the hole for everyone after he gets up and makes sure Louis’s is the prettiest, with the cheese melted just right. He doesn’t even pretend that it makes up for what a completely inappropriate and dirty friend he is, since the mere _act_ of doing things for Louis, cooking for him and making his tea and waiting on him, is inextricably tied up in his fantasies from last night. It’s frustrating, really, how impossible it seems to get _away_ from the profound depth of his want. Like it’s grown into his veins, replacing the blood with a pitiful, unending devotion. 

Harry might spend the afternoon pouting, while the rest of the lads play footie outside. He at least does it under the guise of tidying up the increasingly disastrous bungalow, and then, when he runs out of things to fold or put away or toss in the wash, under the guise of making lunch. It feels weird and kind of _wrong_ , actually, to be away from Louis when he’s spent almost every moment since they first met orbiting if not being directly attached to him. It feels like he’s not just missing a friend but missing a _limb_. his whole heart. It’s totally pathetic, and Harry indulges himself as he cleans, stewing willfully in self-pity. 

He’s constructing sandwiches for everyone when Louis shoulders his way into the kitchen, smelling sharp and spicy-warm, like sweat and grass and sunlight and cologne and boy. The tang of it makes Harry immediately weak, and he shoots a glance over his shoulder at Louis as he approaches, infuriatingly _shirtless_ , glistening in a sheen of perspiration, cutoff shorts riding low on his hips. “Who won?” Harry asks, voice so low and glum it’s _embarassing_. 

Louis shrugs, reaching over Harry and filling a glass with tap water before chugging it noisily down. Harry turns around to watch him swallow, to stare at the rippling line of his throat as he drinks, and there’s no _use_ , he’d rather watch and suffer than not watch at all. He sighs as Louis wipes his mouth and says, “Dunno. We weren’t really keeping score.” 

He flicks searching eyes over to Harry, studying him quietly for a moment, like he’s looking for something specific. “So,” he asks conversationally, leaning against the counter and popping out a hip. “Why are you all alone? S’a beautiful day out there, Harold. Thought you might want to get a healthy dose of sunshine. You’re looking pale.” 

He cups Harry’s face in his palms, and Harry twists away, stomach somersaulting. “Well,” he says, turning back to his partially built sandwiches, which currently consist of open-face rye bread smeared with mustard. “There are four lads staying at my house who keep tracking in mud and getting crisp crumbs on literally everything. And I happen to have a mum who entrusted me to keep things like that from happening. So….,” he trails off, watching the way Louis purses his lips, the way his face melts from hard, inquisitive lines into fondness. 

“What rubbish,” he says, grabbing a slice of rye, tearing it in half, and shoving one of the halves into his mouth. “Want me to kill them for you? I’ve been known to be a terrifically efficient hit man when I need to be,” he says through a full mouth, spewing crumbs, a perhaps unintentional addition to his joke, and Harry is _helpless,_ he grins in spite of himself, face bunching up in defeat because he can’t even fake being irritated with Louis. 

“No,” Harry says. “Just let me clean up after them. I’d really miss them if they were dead.” 

“Why don’t you let me help?” Louis says, demolishing the rest of his rye slice and wiping his hands on his shorts. He’s still decidedly shirtless, and Harry can’t stop _looking_ , gaze inevitably pulled to the perfect expanse of golden skin stretched tight over Louis’s ribcage, his surprisingly fit biceps, his soft belly. On one hand, he doesn’t want Louis’s _help_ ; he loves the way Louis just _watches_ him do chores without lifting a finger to assist because it’s unexplainably charming and hot and delightfully _Louis_. On the other hand, Harry doesn’t want him to _leave_ , either. It feels irresistibly good to have him close like this, no one to compete with for his attention. 

Louis doesn’t wait for him to figure it out. He makes a show of going to the sink and grabbing the soap. “Look, I’ll even wash my hands like a proper cafeteria worker. Even though I want badly to slip something nasty in Liam’s sandwich, I will follow health codes just for you, Harry.” He bats his lashes. 

Harry snorts. “You don’t _have_ to help, you know. I don’t need the help. You might even slow me down.” 

Louis flicks water from his hands in Harry’s face. “Look who’s ungrateful!” 

“M’not ungrateful, you’re just _unhelpful_ ,” Harry explains. 

With his hands on his hips, Louis makes a face. “You haven’t even given me a _chance_ , I’m _hurt_. Just put me to work, I might surprise you,” he grabs a wooden spoon from the draining board, brandishing it like a lightsaber. Harry wasn’t even _using_ that spoon, so it does nothing at all to aid Louis’s point.

“Nah. You can just like, sit there and look pretty instead,” Harry suggests, taking the wooden spoon from Louis and swatting his shoulder playfully with it. _Is this flirting?_ he thinks with a delirious thrill of heat in his gut. _Is it possible to flirt with a guy who has a girlfriend?_

“ _Um_ , or I can cook and look pretty at the same time. You do it, so it can’t be that hard,” Louis says with a smirk. 

_Definitely flirting_ , Harry realizes, chest suddenly tight above his knotted stomach. He loves Louis’s lopsided smile, loves the way he has spat out a compliment wrapped in insults. His cheeks color; he’s _embarrassed_ , and he _likes it_. He wants Louis to tell him all the things he’s doing wrong, he wants Louis to call him out for pouting like a child, _scold him_. His breath comes out tight as he finally says, “Okay. You can help. But only if you slip something nasty in Liam’s sandwich.” 

“Deal,” Louis says, beaming. 

However, Louis does _not_ help. He strategically ruins all of Harry’s attempts to make sandwiches, pulling lettuce from one sandwich to the other, picking tomato slices off the cutting board and popping them into his mouth before they ever make it to their rightful destination. It’s more adorable than it is infuriating, so Harry just dissolves alongside Louis in a fit of giggles, chiding Louis and shoving him unconvincingly, dizzy with the way Louis always pushes _back_ , crowding into his space, wadding up bits of rye crust and flicking them at Harry’s chest. 

At some point, Louis wanders to the cupboard and surveys its contents, deciding eventually upon a bag of baking flour that he heaves to the counter. “You need this, don’t you?” 

“ _No_ , who has been making _your_ sandwiches?” Harry snorts. 

“Yes, you do, you need flour. Your recipe calls for it,” Louis explains, opening up the bag and getting a fistful of flour. He dumps most of it into Harry’s hair, grinning wildly at the indignant squawk that it elicits. Then, after a moment of quietly contemplating the dusting of white powers on his palm, he reels back, and smacks Harry on the ass. 

_Oh_. Harry doubles over on the counter, gasping, eyes suddenly prickling with unexpected, overwhelmed tears. He knows that he is not responding in the way someone is _supposed_ to respond when one’s friend leaves a playful and totally innocuous flour handprint on one’s ass, but he can’t recall for the life of him what a more normal response would be. 

Louis’s breath is coming out fast. “See? You needed it,” he says quietly. 

“Oh, god,” Harry murmurs, coming apart a little, suddenly mortifyingly hard in his jeans. He rounds on Louis, grabbing his own handful of flour and dumping it down Louis’s bare, sweat-sticky chest. Some of it clumps up in the shallow valley between his pectorals, and some of it puffs up into dust, clinging to Louis’s eyelashes as he stares, wide-eyed and slack-mouthed for a moment before launching himself at Harry, pinning him to the counter as they both wheeze in frantic laughter. 

“You’re a terrible cook, look at you, wrecking your kitchen, wrecking your mates’ sandwiches,” Louis babbles breathlessly, wrestling Harry’s arms out of the way, fingers tight on his wrists. 

“I’m _not,_ ” Harry tells him. “You know I’m not.” 

Louis pushes his hand through Harry’s hair, fingers snagging, flour leaving white smudges on Harry’s forehead, his cheek. He lets his head be tilted back, lets Louis get so close it’s dangerous, the tips of his incisors showing he’s so close, the blue of his eyes edged out to the fine ring of sun-bright sky around his pupil. Harry is shaking. 

“No,” Louis whispers. “You’re not.” 

Harry thinks, for one brilliant, terrifying second, that Louis is going to kiss him. 

Instead, he shoves a fistful of flour down the front of Harry’s jeans, face breaking out into a feral, hectic grin before he tears away, simultaneously fighting off a nonexistent counterattack, and ducking. Harry is too lost to move, though, plastered up against the counter with flour clinging to the trail of hair between his waistband and his navel. “You can put the flour that touched your balls in Liam’s sandwich,” Louis shrieks over his shoulder, tearing out of the kitchen, through the living room, and out into the garden. 

Harry watches him shake flour from his hair as he jogs back to the footie game, and then he sinks very slowly to the kitchen floor, heart in his throat. He is still shaking. 

—-

 

A few days later, Harry finds himself squeezed next to Louis on a single reclining patio chair, watching Niall officiate a heated pool volleyball match between Zayn and Liam. Normally, Louis would be all over something like this, elbowing Niall out of the spotlight so _he_ could be the announcer, or spiking the ball over the net and aiming for Liam’s face with lethal intent, but he’s oddly subdued this afternoon, quiet and soft and focused on Harry. 

_He_ is the one who jammed himself onto _Harry’s_ patio chair, even though there are two totally unoccupied ones. Harry thinks that maybe he should have done something about the proximity, knowing full well he can’t tolerate so much of Louis’s skin pressed flush against his own, but he’s so far past the point of actually saying no to anything Louis offers him, he just shrugs. Shifts over as much as he can on the sun-bleached nylon, making room for Louis and his wet trunks.

“You’re so white I’m worried I’ll get a sunburn just lying next to you,” Louis teases, voice too soft and too close to Harry’s ear, a breathy thing, like Louis doesn’t want the other boys to hear. “Sun’s just gonna reflect off you and fry me up.” 

“M’not that white,” Harry mumbles back, blocking the sun with his forearm and turning to Louis, thinking that it is a very dangerous thing, to face him, but also not something he’s willing to pass up. Like everything else with Louis these days. 

“Are you kidding me? You’re like a snowdrift, mate. Christmas morning,” Louis says, gesturing loosely in the air with those soft, narrow wrists. Harry wants to press a kiss to the inside of each of them; he wants to feel Louis’s pulse under his tongue. He wants to sidle up closer and ask, _Am I really Christmas morning?_

What he does instead is make a face and tell Louis, “Maybe you should put on some sunscreen, then.” 

Louis smirks at him. “You want to rub it in for me? Since you’re so good at back rubs?” He pokes the tip of his tongue between his teeth and waggles his eyebrows at Harry then, too much to _take_ , this incessant, confusing fake-flirting. Harry colors fiercely, hiding his face in his palms. 

“I will if you want me to,” he says through his hands. 

“How ‘bout you let me return the favor instead?” Louis asks, prodding Harry’s arm. 

Harry doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, at first. It’s too hard to process, the idea of reciprocity, so he just blinks, a line through his forehead. “What favor? I already have sunscreen on.” 

“Let me rub your back,” Louis says, voice coming out a little strangled. His fingers are still resting on Harry’s bicep, warm and insistent as he brushes them down to the ditch of his elbow. Wet trunks or not, Harry feels a sudden heat pool in his gut, for he is only sixteen, and Louis is so _close_ , such a mystery. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he says, crinkling his nose up like it’s an absurd idea, Louis _touching_ him like that. Flashes from last night when he rubbed Louis’s back rush unbidden to his brain, soft skin slick with lotion, Louis’s voice high and reedy and satisfied, like it felt so good. Harry’s mouth is quite dry when he adds, “Like… I didn’t expect or want that. I just wanted to. For you.” 

“Yeah, and I’m telling you I want to, for you. I’m not a seasoned pro like you are, but I have hands and I’m not an idiot. You did say _trade_ back rubs, didn’t you?” Louis explains, squeezing Harry’s shoulder experimentally, eyes looking wide, shot. 

_Did I say that?_ Harry wonders deliriously, mind reduced to a haze. _What is happening?_ “Out here?” he asks then. _Where everyone can see?_ He is very aware of the other boys, Niall’s X-Factor voice and Zayn’s uncoordinated splashing, all three of them screaming and laughing and yelling at each other.

Louis’s eyes get wide. “Doesn’t have to be. We can go inside if you want privacy. But it doesn’t, like, have to be anything fancy? You could just, like. Sit in front of me.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Harry answers hastily, not trusting himself _at all_ to convincingly tell Louis that they should _go inside_ so that he can _rub his back_ without it sounding like a flat-out proposition. He’s already full of butterflies, already half-sitting on his hands in case Louis can detect the tremor in them. He scoots to the end of the lawn chair, presenting his back to Louis. “Don’t hurt me.” 

Louis, for once, doesn’t say anything. He inhales sharply then reaches for Harry’s waist, tugging him a little closer. “You’re all the way out there,” he says then, voice far away, light, choked. “Are you afraid of me?” 

“Yes,” Harry half-lies, wincing as Louis rubs his thumbs over his lower back, smoothing them out toward his hips. “I don’t think you have certification in this.” 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Louis admits, dissolving into breathy, nervous laughter. “Like, this is totally weird. What am I supposed to do? Just _touch_ you?” 

Harry grits his teeth together, sucking in a breath before answering, “I don’t know. Just. You don’t have to.” 

“What hurts? Like where are you sore?” his voice is so close to Harry’s ear, chin nearly hooked over his shoulder, breath warm, perfect. Harry squirms, eyes flicking to the pool because they're _right there_ , Liam and Niall and Zayn totally absorbed in their game, completely unaware that Louis has his hands on him, clumsy and small and perfect, unmoving where they’re latched awkwardly on the swell of Harry’s hips. “God,” Louis says suddenly, hands tightening reflexively on Harry’s sides before letting go. He wipes them frantically on his trunks. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he repeats. “Apparently I am shit at massage.”

Harry blinks, head spinning. “You just…,” he reaches out in front of him, flexing his fingers in the air like he’s rubbing an imaginary person. “On the shoulders. Or whatever. You don’t _have_ to do anything,” he mumbles, remembering with a streak of panicked incredulity that _Louis_ is the one who brought this up, _Louis_ is the one who convinced him he should let this happen. He swallows thickly, shooting what he hopes is an amused grin over his shoulder at Louis. “You know, I think that was the worst massage I’ve ever had in my _life_. I wouldn’t employ you at Hazzy Endings.” 

Louis’s mouth falls open, and he looks affronted. “Not even as a receptionist?” 

Harry smiles, genuinely amused now. “Maybe as a receptionist.” 

“Very generous,” Louis says lightly, tilting forward and brushing his cheek against Harry’s shoulder, one of one hundred baffling things he’s done since they met, one of one hundred things for Harry to agonize over. He should be getting used to it by now. 

“I’m gonna go put sunscreen on,” Louis announces, grabbing his towel and hopping off the patio chair. 

Harry watches him go, wondering how many more times he will have to, how many more images of Louis Tomlinson’s retreating back he will have burnt into the fiber of his memory. 

—

Harry is doing everyone’s laundry the day before the next round of auditions: they’ll either have clean clothes to move into the X-Factor house or clean clothes to take home. The latter option is so deeply upsetting that he’s trying hard to not think about it, instead quietly humming their song to himself over and over again, like it will increase his chances of singing it better if he hammers the words even more deeply into his brain. 

He can hear the other boys outside in the living room, Niall’s guitar, Zayn and Liam rapping Nicki Minaj, Louis cackling alongside them. Louis’s laugh is stupidly musical, like a wind chime against a glass window, so pretty it makes Harry ache. 

He forcefully grabs an armful of laundry out of the basket, depositing it on top of the washing machine and grimacing. He can _smell_ Louis’s clothes, the spice of his cologne and the sharp bite of his sweat, so overwhelming it sends a pang of guilty heat down to Harry’s gut. He’s annoyed that he keeps getting turned on so easily, annoyed that he’s stuck in a near-constant state of fevered arousal at the _stupidest things_ , like Louis sucking water out of a bottle so hard the plastic caves and dimples or Louis’s still-damp footie jersey with the stains in the underarms. 

Harry resents it, but all of Louis’s shirts feel _softer_ than the rest of the dirty clothes, like the fabric is somehow warmer and more threadbare just because it has touched Louis’s skin. He disentangles one from a pair of jeans, the shirt Louis sleeps in, a worn oversized thing in the worst shade of yellow. Harry will not let himself inhale from Louis’s _pants_ or anything (though he’s considered it with a lurch of sick shame in his gut more than once), but he _does_ wad this shirt up and press it to his face, breathing from it. His cock thickens in his pants, twitching against his thigh. It’s not his _fault_ he’s sixteen and Louis smells so _good_ and he’s _so fucking confusing_ , always touching him, drawing him so close, looking at him like doesn’t remember there are other things in the world to look at. 

Harry keeps telling himself that he should _really_ stop sniffing Louis’s shirt, but he keeps doing it. He also tells himself that he should stop pumping his hips in the air uselessly, but he keeps doing _that_ , too. 

It’s just, they might _go home_ tomorrow, go home with suitcases full of clean laundry and maybe never even see each other again, Louis and all his brilliance, all of his sunshine suddenly _gone_. Harry can’t stand the thought. 

He knows he might never have another opportunity to inhale Louis’s scent like this, pure and fresh and real and so _sexy_ , traces of his skin and his hair and his sweat and his sleep-breath all worked into the maddeningly soft fibers. This would be what the sheets would smell like if Harry was ever lucky enough to sleep in Louis’s bed. This would be what _Harry_ would smell like covered in Louis, after a night spent making him come, grinding against him and kissing him and licking up his sweat. Harry shivers, cock twitching again. 

Louis laughs again outside, a high, clear peal of it, and Harry glances over his shoulder at the closed door before bracing one hand against the edge of the washing machine and freeing his cock from his pants with the other. 

He’s ridiculously hard considering all he’s done is smell Louis’s shirt, and the little thrill of embarrassment from that, coupled with the knowledge that he _should not_ be doing something so dirty, _especially_ with the other boys just a room and a hallway away, has him shaky, red-faced, leaking. He starts off slow, jerking his cock with long, firm strokes that make his toes curl against the linoleum. He presses his face into Louis’s shirt, breathing from it and letting himself drool onto it a little when his mouth falls open, stomach quaking as he speeds up his pace, tugging in earnest now. 

He imagines Louis walking in on him, the way he’d stand in the doorway with his pretty mouth hanging open, cheeks flushing as he realized what Harry was doing, eyes darkening when he saw that Harry was doing it _with his shirt_. Harry grits his teeth as his stomach drops, shame and hunger twining together in a knotted mess, so hot it’s painful. He muffles a groan with Louis’s shirt, fingers sticky with precum, insides lurching at the smell of him. 

Before he can think too much about the inevitable self-recrimination that will follow such an act, Harry grabs Louis’s shirt and holds it over his tip as he shoots off, so that he can watch with a dazed sort of overstimulation as his come lands all over the hideous yellow fabric. He shudders, almost collapsing when it’s over, holding himself up with one weak and trembling arm as he stares in muted horror at how _good_ Louis’s shirt looks painted in his come, the pearlescent white clinging to the tattered collar, like it had dripped down off Louis’s chin. 

Harry suddenly feels quite empty and quite awful. He wipes himself up with the shirt before tossing it into the wash, cheeks hot with mortification as he tucks himself back into his pants, teeth grit. _Why did I do that?_ he asks himself, immediately regretting it because he _knows_ why he did it, he _knows_ what’s happening. _Because I fancy Louis, fancy him so much it feels like the end of the world to imagine going home tomorrow without taking everything I can, everything I can get away with._

“Hazza!” Louis shouts from the living room, and Harry’s knees almost buckle when he hears it. “You’ve been gone ages, how long does it take to throw some clothes in the wash?!” 

Harry swallows fiercely, rubbing his face with his palms as he recovers his balance as best he can. “You wouldn’t know, would you?” he shouts back, heart pounding. “Since you’ve never done it.” 

“Oh, Louis, hear that? Ouch,” Zayn crows, loud enough to drown out Louis’s affronted gasp. 

“Come back,” Louis yells anyway. “Want me evening tea.” 

Harry hastily dumps some detergent into the washer before closing it and starting the cycle. There are few things that could drag him out of the laundry room faster than Louis’s demand for tea, and he’s grateful for something to _do_ with his hands, which are still hot and sticky and tremulous. 

He washes them before he boils the water, and while he’s scrubbing his palms at the sink, Louis wanders in from the living room, looking so soft in his glasses and grey beanie and cuffed joggers. “Missed you,” he murmurs as he drapes himself over Harry’s back and shoulders, lips soft against Harry’s neck. “Hate to think how much I’ll miss you if we get eliminated tomorrow. Who will make my tea?” 

Harry’s heart, which had only _just_ slowed to something reasonable, kicks back in his throat, thudding so hard he feels choked up. “Louis,” he starts, voice hoarse. “Do you think…can we stay friends? Even if we go home tomorrow?” 

Louis slides his palms down Harry’s biceps, pausing to squeeze gently. His face is still burrowed in Harry’s neck, breathing a soft, dizzying huff of warmth as he laughs. “God, yes. Please.” Then he coughs, pulling away. HIs glasses are adorably askew, and as he straightens them, Harry realizes he couldn’t stop beaming if his life depended on it. “We won’t go home, not with you on our team,” Louis says. “But if we do…well. You have my number. Your village isn’t that far away, and Stan has a car.” 

“Or I’ll come all the way to Doncaster. You know, to make your tea,” Harry says, gesturing to the kettle. 

Louis’s eyes flash, entirely too blue and too bright. “See? Lovely housewife. Not even letting a long-distance relationship dampen her dedication to the cause.” 

Harry has to turn back to the stove lest he allow too much of the wild storm of feeling inside him show through in the fierceness of his grin, so wide his cheeks are aching. 

Louis props himself up against the fridge and watches Harry finish preparing his tea.

—  
Harry loves living with the other contestants in the X-Factor house, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss the way it felt to be at the bungalow with just him and the other lads, Louis’s attention divided between him and only _four_ competitors. He doesn’t get Louis alone as much as he did at the bungalow, and on top of that, they’re _insanely_ busy, always jetting off to rehearse, forever pursued by cameras. 

Three days into their first week in the house, Harry feels like he’s crawling out of his skin. He’s _claustrophobic_ , needing to get out so he doesn’t combust, forced to watch Louis traipse around with so many other, older, more interesting people, pranking the Bellamie girls with Zayn or sitting in Aiden’s lap, messing with his hair. He watches him constantly, realizing that what he had perceived as a kind of unique closeness with Louis at the bungalow was perhaps just the way Louis _is_ , that he’s physically affectionate with everyone, perpetually teasing _everyone_ , and it takes a more diverse host of people to realize that he isn’t actually _special_ to Louis. 

They still touch quite often, but it feels _different_ now that there are more roommates, a bigger audience. It almost seems like Louis is putting on some kind of _show_ , always kissing cheeks and demanding piggyback rides, sometimes from Harry but also from everyone else. Save for a particularly traumatic night when Louis kept resting his hand on Harry’s _thigh_ while he talked animatedly to Cher, who was sitting on Harry’s other side during dinner, most of the contact is dramatic, public, like Louis is trying to garner some type of _response_ from his peers in the house and using Harry as a prop in the meantime. As a result, Harry feels perpetually heartbroken, confused, and sexually frustrated. He spends a lot of time snuggling Mary in fits of barely concealed self-pity, wanking in the shower, and meticulously ironing Louis’s chinos. It’s not a very good combination of pastimes, if one wants to preserve any sort of dignity. 

The evening of the fourth night, Aiden announces that he and Rebecca are going on a grocery run, and Harry charms and begs his way into them letting him tag along. Louis, who is curled up on a chair in the living room tossing things at a sleeping Liam, brow furrowed in concentration as grapes and balled up tissues accumulate around Liam’s head, chimes in, “You’re leaving me?” He turns to pout over his shoulder at Harry before lobbing a grape at him, and it very nearly hits Aiden. “Don't leave me.” 

Harry grinds his teeth, not sure what the fuck he’s supposed to be _doing_ anymore, how he’s supposed to survive the terrible fate of having fallen stupidly, pathetically, torturously in love with a boy who not only has a _girlfriend_ but spends a tremendous amount of time hanging all over him and saying confusing things like _don’t leave me_. Like, Harry can’t _live_ like this, so close to Louis but at the same time so very far away. It’s not a bad way to die, but Harry doesn’t want to die yet. 

He sighs, pulling on a hoodie and going all pigeon-toed. “I need to get out, m’getting stir-crazy,” he explains. Louis throws another grape, and Harry perks up a bit, rolling onto the balls of his feet as he asks, “Do you want anything? From the store, I can bring you--”

“Toothpaste,” Liam grumbles, waking up blearily, staring down in confusion at the avalanche of grapes rolling off his chest as he sits up. “Get him a tube of toothpaste, he keeps stealing mine.” 

“Sharing, Payno, we’re _sharing_ ,” Louis explains calmly, pitching the last of his grapes in rapid succession at Liam. “Here, have a fruit salad.” 

“Toothpaste, noted,” Harry sighs, so _endeared_ by Louis, as endeared as he is irritated at himself for being so endeared. “Anything else?” 

“Mmmm, a treat? Biscuits? Some sweets? I don’t know, surprise me,” he says, hopping out of his chair and skating in socked feet over to Harry. “And a kiss goodbye, since you’re a proper housewife and all.” 

Color blooms spectacularly across Harry’s face, and he is very aware of Aiden and Rebecca standing by the door shuffling awkwardly, wanting him to hurry up and get Louis’s shopping list so they can leave. Louis hooks his arm around Harry’s neck and offers his cheek expectantly. “Go on, then” he goads. 

Harry panics a little, and it must look _bad_ because he knows that Rebecca and Aiden have seen him kiss everyone in the house’s cheeks at least two hundred times, themselves included. So it’s absurd and telling and _suspicious_ for him to refuse, twisting awkwardly out of Louis’s grip and shoving him away because he’s _not ready to die yet._ “Stop,” he complains. “I’ll get you toothpaste but no kisses.” 

Louis looks shocked, too. He makes an affronted face like he knows that every single one of Harry’s kisses already belong to him, and he’s being _ridiculous_ and out of line to deny him such things. He crosses his arms over his chest, popping his hip out sassily as he says, “No?! Really. You’re going to let me _rot_ here with Liam while you go on a fun outing with Aiden, and I don’t even get a goodbye kiss?”

“Maybe you’ll get one when I come back,” Harry grumbles, tying his sweatshirt string and preparing to wrench himself away from this terrible, wildly unfair test of his will when Louis pounces, grabbing his cheeks between thumb and forefinger and forcing him to pucker up. And he can’t _help it_ , he’s only sixteen and very in love and Louis’s hands on him make him physically weak, dizzy and slack and pliant as Louis drags him in. 

“That wouldn’t be a goodbye kiss then, would it?” Louis says, voice dangerous. Harry thinks Louis is just going to make him kiss his cheek, bring his face close enough that his mouth will inevitably crash into the perfect, irresistible cut of his cheekbone, and Harry will _have_ to kiss, because he can’t just _not_. But instead, Louis pulls him closer and closer, until Harry can smell the sweetness of his breath, and then Louis kisses him. A solitary, punishing smack of his lips, soft and slick, like he just swept his tongue over them. 

Harry _groans_. In front of Rebecca and Aiden. In front of _Liam_ , who coughs from the couch, muttering something that might be _you guys are so weird_ but theoretically could be _anything_ , because Harry can only hear the frantic roar of blood in his ears. Louis shoves him away, a triumphant, squinty smile on his face. “That’s better. Now. Toothpaste and sweets!” He does a little dance, bobbing his head side to side and waggling his eyebrows. He does not look like he’s falling apart, like Harry’s lips on his, even for the briefest of seconds, have had any adverse affects on him at all. 

Harry, on the other hand, is stumbling awkwardly into Rebecca, cheeks so hot and eyes downcast at the floor. His lips are tingling and his stomach is knotted in combined humiliation and fierce, sudden arousal.

Rebecca grabs his shoulders and steers him to the door. “Come on, little lover boy,” she chides. “Are you trying to make everyone fall for you? You have one down, at least.” 

Harry laughs, then, throws his head back and positively _squawks_ with it because she couldn’t be further from the truth. 

—-

When Harry returns from the shopping trip, Louis is nowhere to be found. Chest tight with a mixture of relief and disappointment, Harry charges up the stairs, deposits a plastic bag containing toothpaste, Maltesers, and a Crunchie bar onto Louis’s (predictably clothes-strewn and unmade) bunk. Then, he grabs a heap of dirty shirts off his own bed and bolts off to the laundry room, one of the only places where one can get any privacy at all in the X-Factor house. Once there, he locks himself in to self-deprecatingly iron. 

Harry has become somewhat reliant on the routine of laundry, even though it forces him to recount in mortifying detail the way he wanked into one one of Louis’s shirts back at the bungalow. He doesn’t _want_ to like it so much, the way he gets to touch Louis’s clothes as he spreads them out onto the ironing board and dabs Tide on the stains before tossing them into the machine, he doesn’t _want_ it to tug at his insides, but it just _does_. Somehow, doing chores (especially Louis’s chores) has become inextricably wound up in Harry’s complex attraction to Louis. Not just a replacement for what he really wants from him but _part_ of what he wants.

In short, it turns Harry on to please Louis, whether that means buying him sweets from the grocery store or washing his clothes or falling to his knees with an open, ready mouth. It means _anything_ , anything Louis wants. It’s fucking _pathetic_ , and that, really, the _knowledge_ that it’s pathetic turns him on even more. 

When he makes it to the laundry room, he’s deeply disappointed to see that in the time he was gone, Louis has managed to _iron his own clothes_. Two jackets and a whole stack of jeans and chinos are folded neatly on the end of the ironing board, one of Cher’s pink, cupcake-shaped sticky notes plastered to it, reading, _sorry i made you kiss me. it was just a joke, got carried away. did my own ironing to make it up to you!!!!! don't hate me- L_

Harry’s stomach plummets. A dull, painful ache spreads in his chest as he reads Louis’s messy scrawl over and over again, _it was just a joke_ stinging more each successive time. He wishes he was the type who could grab the note and crumple it dramatically in his palm, but he knows he won’t do that. In fact, he peels the note off Louis’s clothes carefully, folding it into quarters and slipping it into his pocket. He wants everything Louis has touched, even the things that hurt him. 

Seeing Louis’s clean, ironed clothes makes Harry feel more useless than he has ever felt in his entire life. He inhales raggedly, tugs his own shirt off over his head before dropping it in a sad pile on top of the other laundry he collected from their bedroom, resolving to wash it because he’s been wearing it for the better part of three days. 

But part of him wants desperately to never ever wash this shirt again. It _is_ , after all, the shirt that Louis kissed him in, even if it wasn’t a _real_ kiss. A _joke_ , he thinks, heart sinking lead-heavy into his gut. 

He starts a wash cycle while the iron heats back up (it’s still faintly warm to the touch from when Louis used it, presumably, and that knowledge makes Harry positively _ache_ ), moping in his willful solitude as his gaze lingers on Louis’s stack of clothes. He’s _mad_ at Louis for doing this for him, for taking one of the few things he has in regards to this frustrating, pathetic situation away. He knows it’s stupid, and he knows it’s not fair, but he’s _exhausted,_ worn down by confusion and the lack of privacy and the unrelenting ache of yearning for someone he can’t have. 

Someone raps their knuckles on the door, startling Harry out of his reverie. “Hazza?” says Louis’s voice, cautious and a little hoarse. “Are you in there?” 

“Yeah,” Harry says, heart pounding as Louis tries the door, finds it locked. 

“Will you let me in?” he says then. He sounds uncertain, and Harry wants to see his face so badly, wants to read whatever is making his voice so reedy and sharp like that in his eyes, in the smile lines beside them. “Thanks for the toothpaste and sweets, by the way. Crunchies are my favorite,” he adds. 

“I know they are,” Harry grumbles as he unlocks the door with sweating hands and swings it open. 

Louis looks almost surprised to see him, like he wasn’t expecting him there even though they were just _talking_. He stands in the doorframe, playing with his hands nervously and flicking his hair out of his eyes, which are unreadably squinty behind his glasses. “Hi,” he says and waves. 

Harry stares. “Um, hi? What…Did you want something?” he mumbles, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he remembers the way Louis’s lips felt so wet and soft against his own, the way the smell of his breath had made his mouth water. It’s a dangerous thing to remember when Louis is standing so close, but it’s impossible to avoid, with the way Louis keeps licking his lips, eyes fixed on the floor.

“I just…did you get my note?” he asks anxiously. 

Harry’s heart _hurts_. “Yeah,” he says in what he hopes is a neutral, and not at all dismayed, tone. 

“I’m really sorry, Harry,” Louis blurts, wringing his hands in his hoodie pocket. “I didn’t mean. I don’t know. I’m just really sorry, I crossed a line and well. I did my ironing for once, I know I never pull my weight with chores, so. Yeah.” 

Harry can’t _see_ , there’s a film of something over his eyes. Tears, maybe, but that would be too embarrassing to accept, so it must be something _else_ , a haze of uncertainty, maybe. Because Harry is _totally_ uncertain right now, his insides knotted up as he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, sniffling, cheeks hot and embarrassed because he doesn't want Louis to apologize, he doesn’t want some stupid, prank of a kiss to draw things too tight and tense between them. “You don’t have to be _sorry_ , I’m not mad,” Harry lies. He _is_ mad, but not for the reasons Louis thinks he might be. He’s mad at himself for acting so pitiful, he’s mad at Louis for picking up an iron for the first time in his life and robbing him of his consolation prize. He’s mad because he’s so in love with Louis it’s making him physically _sick_. 

“Are you sure?” Louis laughs weakly, shouldering his way into the laundry room and shutting the door behind him with a click. “Because you seem a little mad, mate.” 

Something inside Harry snaps, something that’s been building ever since he met Louis and felt like he would never have enough of him, _couldn’t possibly_ , because no one could give that much, especially not a boy with a _girlfriend_. He lets the hurt and the frustration bubble up, until they’re boiling over. “You just…you have no _idea_ ,” he snaps suddenly, eyes flashing as he makes himself look at Louis, Louis and his soft grey hoodie, his infuriatingly ruffled hair that just _begs_ to be smoothed under a hand. “You should probably go,” he grumbles. 

“Wait, _what_?” Louis says, voice clipped and a little frantic. “You said you’re _not_ mad but then—”

“ _Jesus_ , Louis, I’m _not mad_ about the kiss,” Harry fires back, voice thick and low. “I’m mad you ironed your fucking clothes,” he spits out. 

It hangs in the air for a moment, strange and intimate and terrible, like a confession. 

Louis looks at him with wide eyes. “ _What_?!” he says eventually, releasing his clenched hands in his pocket so that they can come up to worry at his hair. “What do you _mean_ , I thought you _wanted_ me to, I thought you _wanted_ help? We’re not at your house anymore, Harry, you don’t have to be the perfect host—”

“Stop,” Harry grinds out, head tilted to the ceiling like that might keep his tears (which are definitely tears, now, there’s no denying _that_ ) from leaking out. “It isn’t about being a _host_ , it’s not about that at all.” 

“What is it about, then?!” Louis yelps, so suddenly in Harry’s space, hands hovering awkwardly like he wants to grab Harry’s shoulders and shake him, but knows he can’t, that he can’t safely touch Harry without something _breaking_. 

“I _want_ to do those things for you!” Harry finally explodes, backed up against the washing machine with no place to go, cold metal biting into his bare back. Louis is _so_ close, his pupils blown and his lips bitten, parted, and Harry can’t _breathe_. He can’t bear to fight with Louis, he doesn’t want to _ruin_ anything, he doesn’t want to lose him or push him away, and here he is, crying about ironed chinos. He’s a mess. 

“Why?” Louis asks, and Harry dissolves a little bit, squeezing his eyes shut tight so the tears inevitably come out, caught on his lashes, hot on his cheeks. 

He hiccups in frantic laughter, shaking his head. “You don’t...you don’t want to know.” 

“Yes, I do.” Louis grabs his face, makes him look at him, and _fuck_. His eyes, they’re full to the brim with black, the warmest blue flickering just at the edge of his shot pupils, and Harry gets quiet and limp, because he’s not sure he’s ever sustained eye contact with Louis from this maddening, life-ruining proximity. “Oh,” Louis says then, almost a whisper. 

Then he pitches forward and kisses Harry on the mouth. 

Harry is too shocked and overwhelmed by the sudden rush of heat to kiss back. By the time he recovers and grabs for Louis, fisting his hands in the front of his sweatshirt, Louis is already reeling away. “Fuck,” Louis breathes, cheeks so flushed and eyes wide as he tries to push himself off Harry. “God, I am _so sor_ —“

“ _Wait_ ,” Harry rasps, voice nothing but a desperate scrape as he rolls onto the balls of his feet and catches Louis’s lips again, dizzy and hungry and only half-believing that this is really happening. 

After a fleeting moment of stunned hesitation, Louis surges around him, all heat and trembles as he takes Harry’s face between his palms and kisses him so deep and so messy, letting out a little groan that gets trapped between the hot, feverish slide of their mouths. Harry melts into it, into the solidity of Louis’s body grinding against him, into the soft wet of his sucking, nipping mouth, and he’s _stunned_. Louis’s hands are all over him, flickering from one place on his body to another fast and clumsy, like he can’t tell where he wants to hold onto Harry, where to touch him first. He finally just wraps his arms around him tight, holding his naked torso crushed to his chest, hands spread on his back, nails in skin. 

Harry can’t breathe, and he doesn’t care. As long as Louis keeps _kissing him_ like this, like a flood, like a forest fire. Louis tastes so good, the graceless flicks of his tongue making Harry’s stomach flip over, his cock already half-hard where it’s trapped between the drag of their bodies. 

“God,” Louis murmurs as he pulls away with an obscene smack, scratching down between Harry’s scapulae with such purpose Harry whimpers, forehead falling against Louis’s shoulder as he struggles to stay upright. Louis forces his thigh between Harry’s legs, both of their breaths catching as they thrust against one another, messy and stilted and maddening. “Fuck, your skin,” Louis hisses, mouth suddenly open and searing down Harry’s neck, teeth against his pulse as he mindlessly babbles, “I’ve been—I, _fuck_.” He bites Harry once, hard enough that it hurts, and Harry lets his head loll back in burning overwhelm, and then Louis is kissing him again, tonguing his teeth apart, sucking his lower lip. 

They rut against each other, rough and blinding, and Harry could _come_ from this, he _will_ come if Louis doesn’t stop circling his hips like that, pushing the hot length of his erection against Harry’s, the heat of him pressing into Harry’s thigh through maddening layers of denim and cotton. 

Someone knocks on the door. Harry almost doesn't hear it, he’s too lost in the unbelievable storm that is _Louis_. Louis touching him all over, Louis dry-fucking him up against a washer, Louis positively _gagging_ for it, all muffled curses and broken off, unintelligible sentences punctuated by kisses. 

Then, it happens again. A firm rapping of knuckles, followed by Cher barking “ _Boys?_ Did one of you steal my post-its?!” 

Harry freezes under Louis, who flinches but doesn’t quite _stop_ , still mouthing wetly over Harry’s clavicle, lips raw and swollen, breath coming out in frantic, uneven huffs, like his body hasn’t caught up with the rest of him. “I didn’t!” Harry yells, heart pounding. He shoves Louis off with both hands, and Louis suddenly realizes what’s happening, dazed and blinking, glasses terribly askew as he springs away from Harry, hands rising to cover his mouth. Cher shuffles audibly outside. “What are you _doing_ in there, Harry, are you alone? Do I want to know?”

“M’ironing,” he says hastily, thinking of something, anything. “S’me and Lou, he’s trying to hide like an idiot, hoping you’ll come in here, and he can scare you—”

“Hey!” Louis yelps, right on cue whether or not he knows it. “You blew my cover,” he adds, eyes terrifically bright and two spots of red on his cheeks as he lies, teeth grit like he’s terrified. _Shit_ , he mouths to Harry, scrunching up his nose, stifling laughter. 

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever seen Louis look more flushed or more lovely. He blinks at him slowly, just as Cher barges in, making them both jump. 

“You’re a little shit,” she says, poking Louis in the chest. Harry stands strategically behind the ironing board to hide his very obviously tented jeans, and he notes the way Louis is adjusting his sweatshirt, fidgety and awkward. “One day, you’re gonna jump out at me and give me a heart attack, and I can’t be held responsible for what I do! I could hit you, you know. Just punch your little lights out, Louis Tomlinson,” Cher snaps. 

“He took your post-its, by the way,” Harry adds, grinning at them both. 

“I knew it,” she says. 

“They’re in the kitchen,” Louis says weakly, cocking his head. “M’sorry, Cher, it’s just that you have such nice stationary. I couldn’t resist.” 

“Just _ask_ next time,” she says, storming away. 

“But you’d say no!” Louis calls after her. He waits until her footsteps to disappear down the hallway, then pointedly closes the door before turning to Harry, eyes still wide, cheeks still pink. His glasses are on straight, but there are smudges on the lens, the corner fogged up from the heat of their kissing. _Fuck_ , Harry thinks, cock twitching in his jeans. He _kissed_ Louis. Louis _kissed_ him. They kissed, snogged, really, so fiercely that Harry’s mouth is still throbbing in time with his pulse from it. 

“Are you okay?” Louis says gently as he shifts his weight from foot to foot, still visibly compromised.

Harry nods, not quite trusting his voice. He’s okay. He’s _great_ , in fact, a little shocked but mostly just _thrilled_ , desperate to be _alone_ with Louis, ideally for a whole day, so he can put his mouth all over him, learn the ways his breath hitches and the way he likes to he touched, but he’d settle for just another few minutes. Long enough he could kiss him once more before they reemerge for dinner, a soft press of lips, a whispered promise for _more_ or _later_. Because there has to be more. There has to be a later. Harry will die if there isn’t. 

They regard each other for a tense, loaded moment, Harry worrying his lip between his teeth, as his eyes sweep unabashedly over Louis, Louis who _kissed him_ , whose spit he can still taste on his tongue. Harry shivers, and he’s about to say something when Cher screams from the kitchen. “ _Louis!!!_ Get your bum in here and explain to me why these post-its are wet!!” 

Louis tears his gaze away, jamming his hands into his pockets as he guiltily drags himself out the door. “M’coming, Cher, prepare yourself for an excellent excuse!” Then, shooting a glance over his shoulder at Harry, he murmurs, “I’ve gotta deal with her, but,” he inhales sharply, rubbing at his face with his palm, “could you, um, maybe iron my jackets again? If you’re gonna do ironing, anyway. I did a shit job at them, I’m shit at ironing things, especially things with pockets,” he explains in a rush. Then, tacked onto the end as an afterthought, he adds, “Please?” 

Harry smiles, looking at his feet because he doesn’t know how to look at Louis right now and still let him walk out that door. His heart is pounding, like it wants to break out of his chest and flood the whole house with love. “Yes, I’d love to,” he says honestly. 

“Right, okay,” Louis says, beaming. “Thanks.” Then he’s gone. 

—-

Harry wishes snogging Louis in the laundry room dissipated his confusion concerning the situation, but if anything it exacerbates it somewhat. There isn’t _room_ in the X-Factor house to really sit down and have a proper talk about what it means to routinely sneak off behind closed doors to steal desperate, hungry kisses with your mate who has a girlfriend, but Harry’s figuring out that he really, really needs that type of clarity. He needs to know if Louis _fancies him,_ or if this is just some game, some outlet for his inevitably pent-up sexual frustration. 

But the clarity never comes. The next week is a blur of rehearsal, black tea, poor sleep, adrenaline-fueled evenings spent screaming and chasing the Bell Amie girls around the house, and rare moments of privacy when Louis will grab Harry by the wrist, pull him behind some locked door, and put him up against the closest vertical surface, stealing as much as they can get away with. 

It leaves Harry positively breathless, shaking and half-hard and smiley for hours afterward, lips stinging from Louis’s teeth, skin burning from his hands. They kiss, and more than once they’ve had enough time to fumble under each other’s shirts and over each other’s jeans, but never more than that, and certainly never any _words_ because as much as Harry wants to know what the fuck Louis is _thinking_ when it happens, he also doesn’t want to stop kissing him long enough to ask. He just takes it as it comes, bracing himself throughout the day until the tide crashes over his head, blissful and overwhelming. 

It might be steadily driving him crazy, though, not knowing. He _feels_ like he can communicate with Louis through eye contact and facial expressions alone, and they’re constantly making eyes at each other across the room, Harry locked in and blinking while Louis’s cheeks get bright and crinkled with the exertion of trying to hide his smiles. But there’s always the possibility that he’s wrong. That when he’s silently saying, _God, you are so beautiful, wish I was under you right now, wish we were touching, I’m so, so lost in loving you I can’t think of anything else_ , is Louis actually responding with, _I know, isn’t this fun? That we’re getting away with it under everyone’s noses? I’m glad you’re not weird about it, that we can fool around and it doesn’t mean anything._

Harry stays up at night sometimes, curled tight around his pillow in his bunk, listening to the way Louis breathes in his sleep, soft and even and untroubled. And he wonders if this is so easy for Louis that he doesn’t even _consider_ what it means, he just acts on it because Louis is an actor, someone who acts without worrying, moves through the world on instinct and feeling and impulse, carried along by the wind. Harry thinks the way Louis acts is _beautiful_ , admirable, even, the way he just _commits_ so completely to whatever he’s doing, whatever role he’s playing. So it seems unfair to be hurt by the possibility that he is just a current of wind. Not the sun, as Louis is the sun. Not gravity. 

Harry doesn’t do much to protect himself from the chance that Louis is using him. It’s complicated, because he _loves_ being used. He _wants_ Louis to use him on some level; he fantasizes shamefully about Louis tying him to his bunk with one of his scarfs and playing with him for hours, doing whatever he wants, taking pleasure from him like Harry is a doll. He _wants_ Louis to see that he will give and give and expect nothing in return, that he _wants_ to do his ironing and prepare his tea and fold his laundry, and that it _detracts_ from the satisfaction of doing so when Louis tries to _help_. Harry is turned on by the idea of Louis using him, even if the reality of it breaks his heart a little. 

What he really wishes for, beneath the layers of confusion and reckless teenage want, is _everything_. For Louis to love him back and use him, too. Use him because he loves him. The very thought of it makes his stomach plummet to ruin, knots tightening in his guts so hard he has to shut his eyes, chew the inside of his lip, count to ten, and think about something else. 

It’s a very big thing to wish for, so it’s easier to just ignore it in the meantime. Let Louis take what he wants and be grateful that they’re kissing at all, that Louis holds him so close when they do it, their bodies flush and tight so that there’s no room to breathe, to think. Harry tries to tell himself over and over again that he doesn’t need more. Or that he at least _shouldn’t_ need more. 

Halfway through their second week in the house, Harry starts to doubt his resolve. 

On Wednesday night, Cher reveals that she has all of the first season of American Idol downloaded on her fancy mobile, and everyone insists that they find a way to hook it up to the TV so that they can all watch it, as a sort of educational, cautionary tale. Matt and Zayn mess with wires and cords for a while, and everyone fights over and eventually stakes their claim in the living room: Louis and Aiden on the couch with Cher and Rebecca, and Harry on the floor with Niall and Liam, a little pouty because Louis flirts with Aiden at least as much as he flirts with him, and he can’t help but suspect that if Aiden wasn’t opposed to the idea, Louis might be inclined to drag him off and shove him up against walls to snog, too. Harry hates picturing it, but he’s doing it anyway; he can’t _help it_ because Louis is halfway in Aiden’s lap right now, shouting nonsensical directions at Zayn as he struggles with the TV. Harry steals glances at them together, and never once does Louis even _notice_ him looking . 

Matt finally figures the TV out, and everyone cheers, settling in as the grainy, pixelated American Idol theme crackles on the screen. 

Harry watches Louis and Aiden out of the corner of his eye, wondering if Louis is touching Aiden’s thigh under the throw they’re snuggled beneath, how he sometimes touches Harry’s thigh. A gentle, idle squeeze just above the knee, like he’s reminding Harry that he’s there, as if Harry ever forgets. Harry’s doesn’t _want_ Louis to touch anyone else like that, he doesn’t _want_ someone like Aiden, who has no fucking idea how Louis likes his tea or what toppings he prefers on his tacos or how to properly iron his navy coat with the beige fastenings, to get the same things from Louis that he does. It’s not fair.  
Harry fidgets on the floor, wanting badly to go squeeze himself between Aiden and Louis, but before he can conceive of a not awkward way to do such a thing, Louis hops off the couch and settles down beside him, ducking so he doesn’t block the screen. “Is this spot taken?” he whispers, gesturing to the six or so inches to Harry’s left. 

Harry grins, so obviously thrilled he covers his face with his hand, hiding it. “Not much of a spot.” 

“Payno,” Louis says then, tapping Liam’s shoulder. “Trade you for the couch.” 

Liam doesn’t argue, he only makes a face at Louis like he’s stupid for preferring the floor. “Be my guest,” he says, and then Rebecca _shhs_ everyone, waving her hands impatiently in the air as Louis squeezes in between Niall and Harry, so close their legs press flush. He turns and grabs the throw from the couch and flicks it over their bodies, and Harry realizes with a sharp pang of anxiety in his chest that this might be the first time they’ve had a proper _cuddle_ since they started snogging. 

“Who do you think is going to win this? My bets are on Kelly. Proper falsetto on that girl,” Louis whispers, lips brushing the shell of Harry’s ear. 

Harry snorts on an unexpected peal of laughter, and Rebecca snaps, “Okay, _really_ , boys, shut up. I’m actually trying to hear the singing?” 

Louis bows his head and shakes in silent giggles, and Harry buries his face into his shoulder, thinking, _I might be able to do this. I might._ The platitude lasts all of five minutes, because as the American Idol auditions continue on the screen, Harry can’t focus. Louis is distractingly close, and he smells impossibly good, deodorant and Yorkshire and toothpaste and dirty feet and Harry can’t even _pretend_ he doesn’t like the smell of dirty feet now, not since perpetually sockless Louis stole his fucking heart and altered his tastes and preferences probably for the rest of his life. Louis is just so warm, and there’s no television program on Earth that could be more interesting than that, so Harry’s attention inevitably drifts. 

It doesn’t help that Louis has an arm slung absentmindedly over his shoulders, pulling Harry snug against his chest so that his face rests right above the steady _thud thud_ of his heartbeat, Louis’s shirt wrinkled under his cheek. It feels insanely, destructively _good_. Just lying here, tucked against the heated solidity of Louis’s body, their legs tangled beneath the throw. Harry stops watching all together and closes his eyes, wanting to memorize every single _second_ of this, his hair moving in time with Louis’s soft exhalations, Louis’s fingers grazing idly and occasionally over his bare arm. He kind of wants to die here. 

Feverish snogging in locked bathrooms is one thing, but this is something else. It feels like they’re _boyfriends_ , and Harry wants to hold onto it, he wants to just sort of bask in the dreamy fantasy of it all. _Do you do this with Hannah?_ he imagines asking, tilting his head up so that he can see Louis’s face shining in the blue glow of the telly. _Do you hold her while you watch movies together? Does she listen to your heartbeat and think about how lucky she is to have you?_

Harry wonders when Louis is going to decide this is too much, give him one final squeeze and shove him off in favor of a more comfortable position. But that’s not what happens. When Louis _does_ move, it’s to slowly, slowly brush his hand down Harry’s bicep, to his elbow, and eventually down to Harry’s waist, which is warm beneath the throw. Harry would mistake it for a nonchalant or even accidental touch, if it weren’t for the distinct sound of Louis’s heart picking up under Harry’s ear, quickening as he moves his hand. 

Harry holds his breath, his own heart stopping as Louis ever so gently thumbs over the little ditch of his waist for a moment before sliding his palm lower, to carefully cup the slight swell of his hip. Harry grits his teeth, cheeks heating up as Louis touches him here. 

He harbors no _real_ insecurities about his body, he hardly thinks about it at all, but when he stands in front of the mirror to check himself out critically, he always shifts at an angle rather than looking at himself straight on, because he _knows_ he has padded hips, a little bit of baby-softness that pokes out over the waistband of his briefs. It makes him look young and underdeveloped, and he doesn’t feel bad about it as much as he’s just sort of ready to grow out of it. But now, Louis is _touching_ it, cupping him there with his small, warm hand, thumb brushing back and forth over his shirt, until he carefully pushes up _under_ the hem to find skin. 

Harry’s breath hitches, and Louis’s hand stops. It’s another several minutes of tight, shared breaths before Louis moves again, this time to slowly, slowly trail his fingers up the line of Harry’s side. His fingers are shaking, Harry can _feel_ it, and on top of that, he’s holding his breath, like Harry might stop him if he exhales. He gently ghosts his fingers up Harry’s ribs and back down to his hip where he grazes his nails over bare skin, all the while his eyes still fixed stubbornly on the telly. 

Louis is fucking _touching_ him, tracing idle patterns and figure eights into his skin in a room full of _people_ , hidden beneath a fleece throw, and Harry doesn't know how to really handle himself in this situation, doesn’t know how to control his body. All his blood rushes inevitably to his prick, leaving him dizzy, short of breath, chubbed up and twitching in his pajama bottoms. He presses up against Louis reflexively, a barely-there movement, but Louis isn’t stupid, he feels the hard, hot line of Harry’s cock against his thigh and freezes. Harry freezes, too, and they just lie there on the floor, held breath and hammering hearts. After a loaded moment, Louis inhales raggedly and turns his head to bury his lips in Harry’s curls, pressing back against him, all heat and pressure. 

“Harry,” he whispers so brokenly, palm flattening out over Harry’s ribcage, over the terrified thrum of his heart. Then, so quiet that Harry isn’t even sure he makes it out correctly, the words lost against the crown of his head, “What are you doing to me?” 

Harry lasts a whole episode more of American Idol before he has to do _something_. Louis has been relentlessly touching him, just soft, idle brushes of his fingers, up his side and as low as his waistband. It’s _unbearable_ , though; Harry is so hard he’s leaking through the fabric of his pajamas and inevitably onto Louis’s thigh. He’s embarrassed as much as he’s turned on, and the burn of that shame only turns him on more. 

He can’t stand it anymore. He gets up clumsily, trying to grab for the throw so he can wear it like towel around his waist, but Louis holds onto it, scrambling to keep it over his own lap and, _oh_. It hadn’t even _occurred_ to him that Louis might be hard, too, or at least hard enough he’d feel the need to cover himself up with a blanket. Harry stares for a second with his mouth open before Matt lobs a pillow at him for blocking the screen, and then he remembers that he’s basically standing in the middle of the X-Factor living room in wet, tented pajama bottoms. He flushes, grateful that the lights are out as he makes his way out to the hallway and to the stairs, which he takes two at a time in his desperation to get somewhere _private_ , anywhere that isn’t the purgatory of being pressed up against Louis’s leg with not enough friction to really _do_ anything. 

He makes it to the ensuite of their bedroom before Louis crashes up the stairs after him, beanie lopsided and mouth bitten and parted when he finally gets to him, rounds on him. Harry is paralyzed for a moment, just staring in dazed, choked -up awe before Louis grabs him by his shoulders and steers him into their room. He watches Louis lock the door with clumsy fingers, and then, before he has time to even register what’s happening, they’re kissing. 

There’s a few seconds of blinding heat, Louis’s tongue and teeth and a wrecked, soft sound reduced to nothing between them until Louis backs Harry onto his bunk and climbs in after him, straddling his lap with tremulous thighs, spreading Harry out so he can touch him. Harry lets it happen, heart in his throat and cock still straining pathetically against his pajamas, mind lost to a haze of pliant, honey-sweet willingness as Louis looks down at him. _You can to anything_ , he thinks, throat too stuck together to say it aloud. _I’m yours_. 

“You drive me absolutely mad,” Louis says in a harsh whisper, voice cracking. Then he puts his hands all over Harry’s stomach, his chest, his shoulders. Broad, hungry, sweeping strokes over his clothes before sliding down and grabbing his hips so hard his nails cut into skin, firm and deliberate. “Fuck, Harry,” he chokes out, voice high and wheezy and almost entirely breath. He swallows, bucking his hips, pushing their erections together in a mess of searing heat. He looks like he might say something, a momentary tightness flickering across his lips before they’re slack again, wet as he licks them, and Harry’s canting off the bed, and then they’re kissing, hands fisting in each other’s hair, clothes, like there isn’t room for anything else. 

Harry feels close to coming in his pants, and all they’ve done is grind against each other, dry-humping like kids, rolling around the bunk as it whines weakly in protest beneath them. Louis gets Harry’s _thighs_ spread, though; he’s situated between them and thrusting in rough, slow, sweet drags, and Harry’s sixteen and in love and he’s _so close_ and embarrassed by it and apparently the type of boy who gets closer and closer the more embarrassed he is. Louis stops kissing him long enough to ask, “Is this okay?” and Harry is begging, _yes, yes, yes_ , into the close, hot space between their mouths before he can even finish. “God,” Louis mumbles into Harry’s neck between wet, clumsy sucks. “It’s not too much?” 

It _is_ too much, too much and not enough, and Harry bucks up into the solid heat of Louis’s body once more, chasing heat and pressure and friction, and then, almost unexpectedly, Harry is coming, white hot and electric between the frantic convergence of their hips. He collapses afterward, limp and trembling as Louis rides his thigh to finish. 

Harry watches in a muted sort of awe as he does it, the pretty curve of his eyelashes against his cheek, the way his mouth falls open into the slickest, most perfect _O_. Harry makes a sharp, strangled noise, even though it’s Louis who's coming. 

Louis stays braced above him, breathing so hard he rocks in time with it, eyes closed. Harry just stares, thinking, _Does she listen to your heartbeat and think about how lucky she is to have you?_ He reaches up with a heavy hand and brushes his thumb over Louis’s cheekbone. “Hi,” he says. 

Louis’s eyes snap open, and he flinches away from Harry’s touch before pressing back into it, just for a moment before he stands up, pulling away. “We’ve been gone too long,” he whispers, voice high and hoarse. He coughs, then adds, “but. All I want to do is kiss you.” 

“Me, too,” Harry says, stomach swooping. They look at each other, something charged crackling between them, even after they both _came._ Harry wonders if this will ever change, if he will ever get used to Louis and his wild, impossible brilliance, or if this is just what he’s doomed to, for the rest of eternity. 

They clean up in silence, and Harry can’t stop stealing glances at Louis, Louis who is _unbelievable_ , glowing and shiny and spectacular after he comes, his hair rucked up until he smooths it carefully, tucks it back into his beanie with still shaking hands. He plants a single, lingering kiss to Harry’s lips before he leaves alone to look less suspicious, and long after his footsteps disappear down the stairs, Harry thinks about that kiss, and how it has been the only soft kiss between them yet, the only kiss that didn’t feel like a fight, like a heart breaking, like drowning. 

He licks his lips and wonders. 

—-

The next morning, Louis wakes up early, pulls on Harry’s down Abercrombie vest, steals a box of cigarettes from Wagner, and spends close to two hours pacing and smoking in the backyard while talking on his mobile. He locks the sliding glass door so Harry can’t go bother him even if he _wanted to_ , but the truth is that he _knows_ on an intuitive, gut level that Louis is talking to Hannah. He watches from the kitchen while he makes tea with Cher, cataloging Louis’s smiles, the way his eyes crinkle up in laughter as he takes another drag on a cigarette. 

Cher nudges him with her hip. “So sullen and quiet this morning. Where’s our cheeky Harry?” 

“He died,” Harry says darkly, looking up at Cher with wide, sad eyes. He can get away with being as absurd and dramatic as he wants with Cher because she thinks that everything he and the other boys do is just a ploy to get attention or cuddles. She’ll always miss what’s really going on. 

She unsympathetically pats his head, proving his point. “What, did One Direction only get 2,000 retweets this morning instead of the customary 3,000? Poor Harry Styles,” she sighs. “Broken hearted.” 

Harry stares at his mug, worrying his lower lip between his teeth before he mumbles, “Yeah.” 

He doesn’t drink his tea or eat breakfast. He’s not deliberately sulking or denying himself anything, he just physically _can’t_. He has no appetite, his stomach is a mess of anxiety, all knotted up into a nauseating ball. He can’t stop thinking about last night, Louis’s _hands_ on him until his skin prickled up in goosebumps, Louis grinding against his thigh until he came, ragged breath and pink cheeks and such raw, wrecked sounds. Louis _kissing_ him. A tender kiss. A goodbye kiss. Harry rubs his face in his hands, trying to pretend his eyes aren’t stinging every time he remembers. 

When Louis finally comes back, he smells like smoke and menthol and cold and morning dew, and Harry can’t help straining to hear how he answers when Matt asks, “How was your chat with your girl, mate?” 

“Fine, thanks,” Louis says, pouring himself a bowl of cereal. Harry wishes he was doing it for him, a useless, hopeless longing that only makes him feel more sick, more cast aside. He tears his eyes away and then eventually his whole body, trudging up the stairs to get dressed early so he doesn’t have to endure being in the same room with Louis anymore. 

By the time they make it to rehearsal, Harry doesn’t think he can properly _talk_ , let alone sing. He’s profoundly, paralyzingly queasy, and every time he opens his mouth he starts to salivate alarmingly, throat tight and sweat prickling under his collar. He can’t stop feeling like a fool, so much more invested in whatever he and Louis are doing than Louis is, tied up so tightly he can’t breathe, think, eat, _sing_ without almost puking. It’s inconvenient, at best. 

He misses his cue for the fourth time, and everyone turns to stare at him, blank confusion written on Niall’s face, exasperation on Zayn’s, nearly explosive frustration on Liam’s, and Louis…Louis looks concerned. “Sorry,” Harry mumbles, also for the fourth time, rubbing his palms over his face, skin clammy. “I just--” he stops himself, overcome with a fresh wave of nausea. He swallows. 

“Are you okay?” Louis says sharply, pushing Zayn out of the way to get to Harry, mouth flattened into a worried line as he takes Harry gently by the elbow, tries to catch his eyes. “Hazza?” 

Harry can’t look at Louis, not right now, so he stares at the floor as as he forces out a clipped, “I dunno, I just feel. I feel really sick. Like I’ll be sick if I sing.” 

“Great,” Liam snaps and Louis turns on him fast, eyes narrowed. 

“Shut up, he’s not feeling well, and all you can think about is _winning_?” his voice is low and serious in a way that Harry has never heard before. It’s overwhelming, to have Louis stand up for him when he’s the _reason_ for his sickness in the first place, so Harry starts to feel wobbly, hot and cold all at once. He knows there are cameras nearby picking all of this up, and the knowledge makes his skin crawl with a distant, childish shame. 

“I have to sit down,” he says to no one in particular, and then he makes it about three-and-a-half feet before deciding to just sit on the floor. All the chairs are too far away, and the room is spinning, so he hides his face in his hands, and waits for something to change. Zayn eventually comes over, crouching quietly down beside him and offering a water bottle. 

“Here,” he says. “We’re gonna take a break. Don’t listen to Liam, he’s a twat. Just hang out for a minute, okay? No one’s mad.” He glances over his shoulder, where Louis and Liam are moments away from a proper shouting match, two nervous crew members poised to intervene. “Well,” Zayn says, shrugging. “Lou is mad. But not mad at you.” 

Harry whines wordlessly at the _irony_ of it all, then manages to choke down a few mouthfuls of water. “Ugh.” 

“That’s good,” Zayn says encouragingly. “Think you’re nervous? Like, stage fright?” 

“No,” Harry says, shaking his head, fanning out his fingers in front of him and watching them tremble. “I don’t think so? I’ve never been sick like this from being nervous.” 

“Yeah, well, battle of the bands is a lot different than the X-Factor,” Zayn says, shrugging. “Maybe you—”

In that moment, Louis is suddenly _inches away_ , on his haunches beside Zayn, hands alighting on Harry’s shoulders, and it’s _terrible_ , really, because even though Harry’s heart starts to pound frantically in his chest, he also is _relieved_ , so grateful that Louis is here and touching him, grounding him, looking at him with that knit brow and pursed mouth. He’s so glad that Louis still _cares_ , even though he has a girlfriend, so glad in fact he kind of forgets Zayn is there and pitches forward into Louis’s arms, face buried in his hood, hands clasping a water bottle awkwardly between them. “I’m sick,” he mumbles, voice lost against Louis’s shoulder. He breathes in, eyes prickling and hot when Louis smoothes his hands up his back, firm but gentle. 

“Oh, babe,” Louis murmurs, and Harry’s heart lunches at the way the endearment comes so soft and quick and easy. He thinks of the way Louis kissed him last night, the press of his lips without the threat of teeth behind it, and his stomach flips over. 

“I really don’t think I can sing,” he says, certain of it this time, trying in vain to swallow the lump forming in his throat. He’s not sure if he’s going to cry or gag, but whatever it is, it _hurts_ , but Louis just squeezes him tighter. 

“It’s okay. Just take a minute, right?” he says before carefully letting Harry go, holding him at arm’s length and looking over his face for a moment. “It’s no hurry, Liam can choke for all I care.” 

Harry snorts, half laughter and half self-deprecating sob. “This must be so annoying for you guys. I don’t want to fuck everything up,” he explains miserably. 

“You’re not, stop,” Louis chides, sitting so _close_ , arm brushing against Harry’s as he leans in. “I’ll sit with you, okay? Just drink some more water.” 

Harry chokes the rest of the bottle down, eyes watering in a mess of nausea and guilt as crew members and camera men all come over to talk to him, checking in and commenting on his off color and whispering amongst themselves about how _dreadful_ he looks. He gets his forehead felt by at least six different people, including Liam ( _It doesn’t_ feel _warm, Harry, are you sure it’s not just nerves?_ ), and it does nothing, really, to loosen the ever-tightening knot of anxiety in his chest. Louis is beside him the whole time, rubbing his back gently and making sure he finishes his water. 

“Maybe if I could lie down somewhere, for a minute,” he says at one point, fantasizing wistfully about his bed back in Holmes Chapel, familiar and comforting with the quilt his grandmother made folded at the foot, once-yellow sunflowers now faded and covered in years worth of accumulated cat hair. Someone suggests the couch in the empty conference room just down the hallway from their rehearsal space, and Louis looks up with bright eyes, squeezing Harry’s bicep. 

“I’ll go with him, keep an eye on him,” he says, like Harry might _die_ if he’s left alone or something. _You’re only two years older than me_ , he thinks, feeling a little put out by how patronizing Louis is being, even though those two years seem like a _lot_ on some days, enough time to make Louis seem complicated and hard to read and cool in an unreachable, untouchable way. Harry must not feel _that_ patronized, though, because he doesn’t just _let_ himself be steered away to the conference room, he’s silently, self-loathingly thrilled that Louis, source of his mysterious psychosomatic illness or not, is offering to take care of him. 

He plops heavily down onto the couch as Louis locks the door and turns out the light, leaving them cloaked in grey half-darkness, illuminated only by the single window on the opposite wall. He makes his way quietly back over to Harry then, sitting down on the couch gingerly. Harry watches, wondering why Louis is _doing_ this to him, what game he’s playing. Complicated and hard to read and cool, unreachable, untouchable. Harry sighs deeply, then closes his eyes, wanting so many foolish, desperate things. 

“Do you want me to give you some space?” Louis asks in a hush. 

“No,” Harry answers honestly. 

Louis is quiet for a few seconds, and then he scoots a little closer, so that their thighs are pressed flush. “So…,” Louis starts, taking a deep, rattling breath, fingers inching onto the semi-translucent skin of Harry’s elbow ditch, so intimate it almost feels like last night’s kiss. He traces the blue ghost of veins there, and Harry grits his teeth. “Does this…does this maybe have something to do with what’s going on between us?” 

It hits Harry like ice water, cold and sudden, Louis just _laying it out there_ , voice raw and soft and _vulnerable_ , even. _What do you mean what’s going on between us? What is it to you?_ Harry wants to ask, but his throat is stuck together; he doesn’t trust himself to talk at all without losing hold of _something_ vital so he just nods, rubbing his very nearly dripping eyes on the back of hand. 

Louis’s fingers still on his elbow, the weight of them a barely-there thing, just above the terror of Harry’s pulse. The stillness feels like the death of something, and Harry doesn’t want it, he doesn’t want Louis to stop touching him. Not now, not ever, so even as he’s shaking his head, he’s pressing his arm more firmly into Louis’s touch, he’s tilting into the pressure of his thigh, drawn in by the heat radiating from his body. It’s kind of how this whole thing has gone, he thinks, looking at Louis even if he’s too bright, touching Louis even if he’s too hot, hurtling recklessly, stupidly into the sun, even as it burns. He inhales raggedly, eyes wet and stinging, understanding every song he’s ever heard in the whole of his short life about how love _hurts_ in new, stark clarity. 

“Do you want me to…do you think we should stop?” Louis asks eventually. His voice cracks over it, and Harry doesn’t know what that _means._

Harry _should_ say yes, but even if he could talk properly, he knows that’s not what he’s going to say. Instead he laughs, and it sounds wet with unshed tears. 

“Is that a no? Can you say something?” Louis says, a little desperately. His fingers twitch on Harry’s elbow, and either that or the note of wavering fear Harry might hear in his voice helps, a little. Two years is a lot, on some days, but Harry can tell in this moment that Louis is just a kid, too. Worried and insecure and human, not wanting to fuck up their friendship, not wanting to tear the delicate fabric of unnegotiated intimacy stretched between them. 

He swallows it down and makes himself say, “I really don’t want to stop, but. I just. I just don’t know if I can _do_ this, exactly.” 

“Okay,” Louis says, and Harry manages to steal a glance at him, at the way his eyes are glistening and the way his lower lip is pink and chapped from being worried between his teeth. He looks so young and so lovely, and Harry’s heart kind of breaks open when Louis’s eyes flick to him, then away again as he asks, “Um, do what, exactly?” 

“Like…,” Harry starts, sighing, trying to figure out the words, what _exactly_ about this situation is killing him, making him too ill to even _practice_ let alone _perform._ “I just can’t…I don’t want to be the boy you’re cheating on your girlfriend with,” he finishes, voice nothing more than a mumble. It sounds pathetic even as he says it, sitting in the air between them like a wound, skinned and infected with jealousy, with hurt. 

Louis makes a little sound in his throat as he lets his fingers fall from Harry’s inner arm to his own lap. “What _do_ you want to be?” he asks, suddenly grinning bright and hectic and a little out of control, too much blinding and untethered energy for this room. He gestures in the air, a sharp, frustrated movement that dies as soon as it starts. “Do you want to be my girlfriend instead?” Louis says then. And if it was supposed to be a joke, it doesn’t come out like one. His voice is choked, tattered, and Harry can’t _take this_ , he can’t _handle_ Louis saying things like that if he doesn’t mean them. 

Harry is shaking when he says, “you want me to be?” It sounds so small and sad he regrets it for a split second, wants to take it back, but the sudden darkness in Louis’s eyes stops him cold. 

“Harry,” he says, and the way he says it. Heavy, overflowing. Like it’s the only word he knows, like he’s packed every meaning of every other word into those two syllables, and they are so full they could rupture. Harry freezes, and Louis swallows thickly before he continues, “I want that more than anything…anything else.” 

Harry just stares, chewing on his lip, watching Louis and his wide, pupil-black eyes. Because Louis is going to say that he’s kidding any moment now, he’s going to add something absurd to the end of that sentence and change everything. Instead, he just sits there, lips in a flat line, looking nervous as he wrings his hands in his lap. He inhales sharply and blurts, “It’s _okay_ if you want something else, just. Please tell me what you want, I want to help you, I don’t want to make you sick.” 

“Louis,” Harry mumbles, going a little limp and sagging into Louis’s shoulder, soft and boneless. Louis looks at him with wet eyes, then after a moment he carefully adjusts the way he’s sitting so they’re touching more, curled in toward each other. “I want that. _So much_. I thought…I thought you were joking. This whole time. Thought you were just. I don’t know…that I was…,” he trails off, suddenly so overwhelmed he can’t breathe, heart swelling up and crowding his lungs to nothingness. 

“…that you were the boy I was cheating on my girlfriend with?” Louis supplies, sneaking his hand up Harry’s forearm and touching him again with light, experimental brushes of his fingers, over the filigree of veins in Harry’s wrist before he laces their fingers loosely. 

“Yeah,” Harry answers, staring in mute awe at the way they’re tangled together, the way Louis’s thumb is rubbing his knuckle, sweeping over the back of his hand. Something so simple shouldn’t feel so good. “I mean, you _do_ have a girlfriend, you talked to her all morning and—”

“Haz,” Louis says, shaking his head, squeezing Harry’s hand. “I broke up officially with Hannah this morning, and even then, it wasn’t a big deal because we were, like….mostly just friends at that point anyway. I literally spent an hour talking about you. Telling her how fucking in love with you I am.” 

Harry blinks slowly, not processing. “You told _Hannah_ you’re in love with _me_?” 

Louis blushes, the most perfect shade of pink spreading down his neck as he averts his eyes and mumbles, “Maybe not exactly that, but yeah. We have a weird relationship, I’ve known her ages and just. I needed to talk to _someone_ about what was happening, how…perplexing you are.” 

“Perplexing?” Harry snorts, smiling for the first time all _day_ , a wide smile that melts like honey, so big it makes his cheeks ache. “That’s a big word, are you trying to impress me?” 

“I’m literally _always_ trying to impress you,”Louis sighs, adjusting so that one of his legs is on either side of Harry, turning toward him fully with sparkling eyes, a crooked smile. “I’m always making a fucking fool of myself over you. But I guess it worked, since you want to be my girlfriend and all?”

Harry beams, fidgeting beneath the way Louis is looking at him, all that honesty, all that _heat_. “It worked,” he says. 

“Harry,” Louis says after an electric moment, squeezing his thighs together so that Harry is trapped between them. “Are you still going to throw up, or can I kiss you?” 

Harry realizes quite suddenly that he’s no longer feeling ill at all, “You can kiss me,” he says quietly, chewing on his lips now that he knows they’re going to be touching Louis’s. 

Louis grabs him by the collar of his sweatshirt, and pulls him down to kiss.. Everything is impossible warmth and waves of thrilled, disbelieving awe crashing over his head as Louis kisses him and kisses him, all soft honey-slowness trembling over barely restrained hunger, so much quaking breath snagging between them. Louis kisses him like he’s been waiting to his whole life, hands moving to cup his face, thumb sweeping over his lips every time he pulls away just to _look_ , with half-lidded, squinty, smiling eyes, like he can’t believe it either, like this is all a dream. They’re kissing like _boyfriends_ , and it’s stomach-wrenching, it’s _perfect_. 

They stretch out on the couch, Harry’s knees bracketing Louis’s hips as he climbs awkwardly on top of him, afraid to give his full weight, shaking with it until Louis murmurs, “Lie on me, like…I just want to feel you. ” He groans when Harry melts into him, like it’s absolving to be crushed under his weight. 

They kiss for ages, until Harry’s lips are swollen and raw and they’re both panting; even then, it doesn’t feel like enough, it doesn’t feel like it will _ever_ be enough. Harry wrenches away, burying his face in Louis’s neck to catch his breath, inhaling raggedly while Louis scratches gently at his scalp, making him shiver. 

“I want,” Harry chokes out, stopping himself because he doesn’t know what to say, when he wants everything. _I want to crawl inside you. I want to suck you off. I want to make your tea and iron your clothes and kiss you like this for the rest of my life_. He whines in frustration, the sound of it muffled and cut off against Louis’s warm, rapid pulse. 

“What do you want?” Louis asks in a breakable hush, palming down Harry’s back and then up under his shirt, breath catching when he reaches skin. “God,” he whispers. 

“I want…a lot of things. That we can’t do here,” Harry settles on, turning his head a little so he can peek at Louis through his hair: his perfect, angled profile, the flush blooming high on his cheekbones, the dark half-moon of fluttering lashes, the way his lips are parted and swollen. He’s so _pretty_ , and Harry has to hide again, chest aching with a wild surge of elation because he can hardly believe he gets to _kiss_ Louis at all, let alone that Louis _loves_ him, wants him back. “I love you,” he says suddenly, lips against Louis’s throat. “I love you so, so much. I have this whole time, since we _met_ , basically, and I was so afraid you didn’t care at all.” 

Louis tenses up as Harry confesses, chest inflating with a sharp intake of breath, which he lets out in a hiss, face crinkling as he smiles. “You don’t even know what it does to me to hear you say that,” he says, nudging his nose into Harry’s hair. “I’ve been going crazy.” 

“Crazy over what?” Harry murmurs, fingers creeping up to trace Louis’s collarbones, the seam of his lips. Places he’s allowed to touch now, apparently, even kiss. He bends, pressing his lips to the cut of Louis’s jaw, flicking his tongue out and tasting the ghost of salt. 

His stomach tightens when Louis says, “Just, you. Everything about you.” His hands tighten on Harry’s lower back, pulling him closer. “I love you, too, obviously,” he adds in a hush. “Definitely since we met. Since I first saw you, I think. And it sounds crazy, but I’ve only gotten more sure, so. Can’t be that crazy.”

Harry smiles against Louis’s skin, thinking that it _does_ sound crazy, crazy and true and so vast and _real_ it’s ripping his chest open, tearing him apart. He props himself up on his elbows over Louis, wanting to _look_ , but it’s so hard to look without wanting to feel, to _taste_ , so he crumbles, and Louis is there to catch him, soft and wet and clumsy and desperate. 

“You know,” Louis mumbles at one point between kisses, nails in Harry’s back and hips jerking. They’re both hard, both breathless, and this room feels so _small_. “I bet I could convince everyone you’re too sick to rehearse at all today. That you need a break, that we need to go back to the house. I mean, the song sounds good, and we still have two more days. We don’t need the practice, right?” 

“Yes, we do,” Harry whispers, but he doesn’t even _care_ , he can’t think of anything right now, save for Louis, can’t see past his smile, his skin, his mouth plush from kissing. He wants to do whatever Louis wants him to, he wants to lie about being sick, he wants to break the rules, he wants to be _used_. The whole thing feels thrilling and dirty and hot. “But. I want to. Want to have the house to ourselves, want to be alone with you.” 

“I’ll tell them you need rest. That I’ll go home and take care of you,” Louis says, getting that _glint_ in his eyes, bright and mischievous and magnetic. 

“Don’t tell them _exactly_ that,” Harry says. “They might get suspicious.” 

“Psh, don’t worry,” Louis says, disentangling himself from Harry’s limbs, which are everywhere, limp and heavy and useless because he feels drunk on this, sleepy and humming with energy all at once. “I can be very persuasive and charming when I need to be, Harold.” 

He watches Louis fix his hair and clothes, leaning against the desk with a smirk quirking the corner of his mouth up. Harry stares, thinking how _good_ it feels just to _let himself look_ , allow his eyes to rove over Louis’s body, his padded tummy and toned forearms and his obvious fucking hard on. Harry grins and points. “I, for one, know how persuasive and charming you are. But you should also, like, deal with _that_ before you try and lie to their faces,” he suggests. 

Louis blushes, covering his face for a second before looking at Harry from between his fingers. “Just give me a minute.” 

_I’ll give you anything_ , Harry thinks, but he bites his lip to keep it inside, since it probably won’t help Louis at all. They grin at each other stupidly for a moment before Louis tears his eyes away, inhaling a big, shaky lungful of air. “I can’t look at you, I have to go to the toilets or something if this is going to work. Okay. Bye,” he says awkwardly, shooting Harry one more look over his shoulder as he leaves, teeth in his lower lip and eyes full to the brim with light, with pupil. Harry’s stomach swoops.

“Go splash yourself with cold water,” he advises, smiling. 

“I’ll be back,” Louis says gently as he lets himself out the door with a click, and Harry rolls over onto his stomach to hide his face in the couch, breathing harsh and fast and amazed, heart so loud in his chest. 

Twenty minutes later, they’re in the backseat of a van heading back to the X-Factor house, and he is pretending to feel ill, head on Louis’s shoulder, nuzzled into his hood to hide the wide, unapologetic flash of his smile. 

—-

The house is eerily quiet when it’s empty, and Harry cringes at how loud their footsteps are on the stairs, even though there’s no one else to hear them. They creep to their room, and Louis locks the door just as a precaution while Harry watches, dazed by the pantomime of last night, stunned that he’s _here_ again, in their bedroom about to kiss _Louis_ , about to touch him. He kicks off his shoes and jeans and crawls into Louis’s bunk, heart rabbiting in anticipation. 

“So,” he says, burrowing under the covers and pulling them up to his chin, inhaling deeply from Louis’s pillow, which smells like smoke and dirty hair. “You really want to be my boyfriend? Can I call you that? Like, not to anyone here, obviously, but like…,” he trails off, feeling his cheeks heat up as Louis’s eyes fall on him, burning and flashing like something explosive across a night sky.

“Yeah, you can call me that,” he says quietly, crawling into bed beside Harry and twining their legs. “I’m so, so happy you want to. Like, I wasn’t sure, I didn’t want to assume anything.” 

“Assume _what_?” Harry yelps, thinking about how fucking amazing it feels to smile about this, to inhale the air that huffs out of Louis’s lips when he laughs, to reach out and play with Louis’s sweatshirt strings and not worry that it’s crossing a line, taking things too far. “That I just, like, wanted in your pants?” 

“Well, sure,” Louis murmurs, carding his fingers through Harry’s hair, smile so big and soft and bright. “I was, like, losing my mind over you and wishing you were _mine_ , you know, and I thought maybe you were just having a good time. You’re _sixteen_ and flirt with literally everyone. I couldn’t just…think I was special.” 

“Ugh,” Harry says, pitching forward and hiding his face in Louis’s chest, heart clenching at how _good_ they fit together, at how naturally their bodies settle into complementary shapes. “You were special. You _are_ special, like, all I’ve been able to think about is how _badly_ I want to be yours. Like. _Louis_ ,” he says urgently, tilting his head up to look at him with wide, serious eyes. “I’ve been making your tea and doing your laundry for _weeks_. I gave you a back rub. It wasn’t to get into your _pants_ , it’s because I _want_ to do all those things for you.” 

Louis kisses him fiercely, licking into his mouth and sucking on his tongue until he’s breathless and trembling and flooded with heat. “Jesus, Harry,” he mumbles when he lets him go. “That back rub, I thought I was going to _die_. I had to kick you out because I was going to come in my pants. It was traumatic.” 

Harry gasps, stomach twisting on itself in a painful, hungry knot. “Really?! I was so hard, too, went and wanked in the bathroom afterward.” 

“God, then we were wanking at the same time, different rooms,” Louis breathes, hands in Harry’s hair, twisting fistfuls of it. “I thought about doing something that night, rolling over and letting you see me, see if you wanted me. But I was so scared.” 

“Fuck, Louis, I would have done whatever you wanted,” Harry whimpers, cock twitching in his briefs as he humps rhythmically against Louis, amazed by the way they’re moving together, the sudden, suffocating humidity between them. “I would have sucked you,” Harry admits. “If I saw you hard for me like that, I wouldn’t have been able to help it. Would have just gotten on my knees.” 

Louis makes a strangled, wordless sound before kissing Harry deep and filthy, a mess of tongue and teeth and spit. “I fantasize about you sucking me all the time,” he whispers into the corner of Harry’s mouth, rolling him over onto his back and grinding into his thigh so Harry can _feel_ him, feel how hard and hot he is. “Can hardly look at you sometimes without thinking about it, your mouth is the most beautiful, distracting, _unreal_ thing I have ever seen, and I can’t believe I get to kiss it,” he says in an emphatic rush of breath before diving back in, groaning helplessly. 

Harry pulls away to breathe, heart pounding and stomach shuddering as Louis palms over it. “You can do whatever you want to it,” he tells Louis, tongue sweeping his lips. “You can fuck my mouth, I _want_ you to, want everything with you.” 

Louis has to close his eyes and inhale unsteadily. “You were gonna puke this morning, and now you want me to fuck your mouth?” he asks, voice hoarse. “Are you sure? Because I’d be just as happy to suck you off or even just _touch_ you… Harry, I’m _so_ attracted to you and in love with you, I want to do _everything_. Every little thing. We can go slow if you want. Just tell me.” 

“I don’t want to go slow,” Harry murmurs. “I feel like I’ve been waiting ages, and we _never_ get time alone. Just. Fuck my mouth, come in my mouth. It’s what I want.” 

“Jesus, _fuck_ , okay, I…okay,” Louis says, voice coming out so choked. “I’m not going to last long, I’m already really close, is that okay?” 

“Yes, that’s _hot_ ,” Harry rasps. “I love that you’re so turned on, just from this.” 

Louis smiles crookedly, propping himself up over Harry and saying, “Been this turned on from less. I only got my hands on you for, like, three seconds by the pool, remember?” 

“I remember,” Harry breathes, watching with hazy eyes as Louis gets up on his knees and palms himself through his joggers. He can see the outline of Louis’s cock, thick and mouthwatering, and his breath catches as he slides his palms up Louis’s thighs, feeling the heat of his skin bleeding through cotton. Louis struggles out of his hoodie, rucking up his hair in the process, his shirt riding up to expose a strip of skin above his joggers, and _oh_ , he’s so golden, he’s so delectable that Harry can hardly _breathe_. 

“Couldn’t even _think_ about giving you a massage without getting hard in my trunks. And everyone was out there, everyone would have seen…fuck, Harry, you don’t even _know_ what you do to me,” Louis’s breath shudders out of him as he works his cock clumsily, wrist jerking, chest heaving with stilted breath. “You’re so sexy,” he murmurs, reaching out to thumb over Harry’s lower lip. 

“You are, you look so good, just please, _please_ ,” Harry babbles, writhing on the bed under Louis’s weight, bucking his hips uselessly in the air. “Just want to taste you so bad,” he begs. 

“Shit,” Louis whispers, scooting up Harry’s body until he’s straddling his chest, eyes fixed on Harry’s mouth. “Are you sure?” 

“ _Fuck_ , Louis, _please_ ,” Harry whines, grabbing Louis’s other pillow and stuffing it under his head so he’s properly situated to get his mouth fucked. He palms over Louis’s body, feverish and aimless, and he just wants _skin_ , he just wants to _see_ what Louis looks like inches from his mouth, heavy and flushed and dripping for him. He wants to choke on it. “Just let me see you,” he says, tugging at Louis’s waistband and pouting. 

“Okay,” Louis murmurs, lifting up and tugging his joggers and briefs down over his ass, hiding behind his hair a little bit like he’s _shy_ , and Harry doesn’t know why he would be. He looks fucking _beautiful_ , skin so tan it’s like caramel, giving way to the peachy rose-gold of his thighs, so pretty Harry’s teeth _sting_ with how badly he wants to put his mouth all over him. He licks his lips, trying to make them as slick and pink and inviting as possible.

Louis is _so_ hard, flexing a little in his loose grip as he stares at Harry’s mouth, hand moving in slow motion, foreskin kissing the wet tip of his cock with each lazy stroke. He doesn’t move for another second, so Harry opens his mouth, letting out a high, involuntary whine before arching his neck up off the pillow and closing the distance, pressing his first open-mouthed kiss to Louis’s cockhead. 

Louis gasps, high and pretty, and a profound, aching heat unfurls low in Harry’s stomach at the sound. He swirls his tongue against Louis’s slit, settling back down into the pillows and pulling Louis along with him, one hand spread wide over his ass, the other fisting around the rest of his cock. He can feel his _pulse_ in it, thrumming in the vein on the underside, and he wants that in the back of his throat, suffocating him, making him cry. He guides Louis’s hips, and that’s all it takes; Louis makes a fist in his hair, holds him steady and sinks into his mouth. Harry struggles to keep his eyes open, tearing up as Louis fucks him, shallow at first then deeper, in unsteady and rhythmless thrusts. Harry moans around the perfect heat of him, staring through tears, moved by how heartbreakingly _lost_ to it Louis looks, teeth grit and hair damp with new sweat. 

Breathing harshly through his nose, Harry slides down Louis’s length as far as he can, sucking until he gags a little, spit bubbling out and dripping down his chin as he fucks his mouth open on Louis’s cock, and it’s _so good_. He feels _drunk_ on the heady, sharp smell of Louis’s arousal, musk and salt and smoke and _Louis_ , all he’s wanted, what his mouth is _made_ to swallow. He palms roughly all over Louis’s ass and thighs as he thrusts, amazed by the smooth flicker of muscle, the way he twitches and tenses and gathers. 

“God, Harry, you take so much, you’re so good,” Louis murmurs brokenly, opening his eyes long enough to see Harry stuffed and drooling, thumb sweeping over the pink, slick ring of his lips before pushing in alongside his cock. He withdraws once more before his hips stutter, eyes scrunching shut again as he comes hard and sudden, the searing heat of it hitting the back of Harry’s throat as Louis fucks back down into the wet softness of his mouth. 

Harry swallows then chokes, pulling off so he can breathe, coughing and wheezing as Louis collapses all over him into a suffocating heap of limbs. “Oh, my god,” he says after a moment, voice rumbling through both of them with a dull reverberation. “I…god. I didn’t hurt you, did I?” 

Harry laughs, wrapping his arms tightly around Louis and squeezing him hard, grinding up against him mindlessly, messily. “No, was so good,” he says, voice hoarse. “Perfect, you’re perfect.” 

“Fuck, your voice is _gone,_ ” Louis laughs, eyes wide as he drags himself off Harry, spreading out loosely beside him. “Liam’s gonna kill me.” 

“Not your fault I was too sick to sing,” Harry murmurs, closing his eyes as Louis thumbs over the torn corner of his lips, wiping up spit and come before he leans in and kisses Harry’s ruined mouth, deep and hungry. Harry sucks on his tongue, still wanting all of Louis in his mouth. His cock, hard and slicking up the inside of his briefs, twitches so hard it _hurts_. 

“Was it really okay? Feel like I lost control for a bit there,” Louis asks, pulling away and flicking his tongue over Harry’s lower lip, where he’s raw and swollen. 

“ _Yes_ , I loved it. I wanted you to lose control. I wanted you to use me,” Harry slurs, circling his hips against Louis’s thigh, beyond caring how desperate and wrecked he must look. Louis is staring, and he feels raw and broken open under the intensity of it, but it feels _good_ , he wants to be looked at like this, he wants Louis to see what he does to him, how _gone_ he is for him.

“I love you,” Louis says, palming down Harry’s chest and stopping just above his waistband, eyes flicking down to the wet spot of fabric where he’s leaked through the thin grey cotton. “Love your eyes, they get so bright,” he murmurs, almost to himself. Then, in a hush, “I really want to touch you.” 

“Then touch me,” Harry whimpers, lifting his ass up off the bed and thrusting helplessly into the air, squirming under Louis’s gaze.

“I should tell you…,” Louis says, tracing over the elastic of Harry’s briefs with his index finger, “I’ve never actually. With a boy. But I want to with you, so, so badly.” 

“I almost came just sucking on you,” Harry admits, watching Louis get up and settle on his tummy between his spread legs, heart in his throat it’s so lovely, so impossible. “I think whatever you do will be the best I’ve ever had.” 

Louis is very quiet as he bends his head and nuzzles into Harry’s inner thigh, nipping at him with sharp teeth before kissing, sucking. Just self-indulgent drags of his mouth, eyes closed and lashes fluttering against his cheek. “You walk around naked, like, all the time,” he murmurs against Harry’s thigh before sucking a spot into the pale skin there, the nervy pain of it making Harry gasp and twist against the sheets. “M’always trying not to stare, but it’s so hard. Your fucking thighs. Just wanted to do this, every time, I thought about doing this,” he babbles before biting again, the white flash of his teeth making Harry’s vision swim. He’s _so_ fucking hard, so hard his stomach is in knots from it, so hard his skin feels tender everywhere. 

“You could have,” he confesses. “Would’ve let you.” 

“Yeah, at the pool?” Louis jokes, grinning from between Harry’s thighs, such a dazzling, terrible thing. “In front of the other lads? Just get down on all fours and put my mouth right here?” He nuzzles into the juncture of Harry’s thigh and crotch, biting ungently. Harry yelps, and it tapers off into a desperate, keening sigh. 

“Yeah,” Harry says, voice so low it’s hardly there. “Anything you wanted, it was all yours.” 

“I want to suck your cock,” Louis breathes, eyes fluttering shut as he rubs his cheeks against Harry, breath hot and teasing as he ghosts his lips across it, through the wet cotton. “That’s what I want.” 

“S’yours,” Harry slurs, trembling as Louis frees him from his briefs, tugging him out with a warm, shaking hand. He watches through his lashes, moved by the way Louis is looking at him, curious and hungry and careful, like he wants to do it right. He pulls the foreskin away from the head and licks up the mess of precum, squeezing his eyes tight and groaning a little. “Fuck,” he says then, licking his lips and making a fist around Harry’s length. “You taste so, so good, Harry, my god.” 

Harry gasps as Louis fits his mouth around him, hollowing his cheeks out and sucking, sliding down his length and swirling his tongue as he goes, so wet and soft it’s _unbelievable_ , the most blindingly _hot_ thing that’s ever happened to him. Louis is sloppy and makes little cut-off gasping noises the whole time, like he’s being _fucked_ , like Harry’s cock in his mouth is the most blindingly _hot_ thing that’s ever happened to _him_ , and Harry can’t take it, he’s arching up off the sheets and shooting off before he can even warn Louis, voice lodged somewhere in his throat. 

Louis makes a startled sound that turns into a hungry groan as he swallows the first spurt of Harry’s come, pulling off and watching intently as he jerks Harry through the next two, mouth open in awed fascination. “You’re so hot,” he murmurs, pushing his fingers up through mess of come on Harry’s stomach, covering him in it. 

Harry tries to catch his breath, abdominals still shuddering, cock still twitching in Louis’s other hand as he jerks him idly through the aftershocks, everything so slick and hot and sensitive. “Best you’ve ever had?” Louis says, voice cracking just enough that Harry can tell he’s at least half-serious; he’s worried, even though he just made him come so hard his vision is still sparkling. 

“Absolutely,” Harty says, petting Louis’s hair with a heavy hand, fingers ghosting through the sweat beaded on his temples. “Like, not even a contest.” 

“Good,” Louis huffs, pillowing his head on his own arm, eyes still fixed on Harry’s belly, the sticky smear of come starting to dry there. “Here,” he says, pulling his discarded hoodie out of a tangle of sheets. He uses it to wipe Harry off, makes a show of dabbing his belly button clean and everything. “All better,” he murmurs, kissing the hollow of his hip before snuggling up beside him. 

“Your hoodie is covered in jizz now,” Harry observes, grinning. Louis leans in to flick his tongue over Harry’s dimple before pulling away in favor of dumping the hoodie in question on Harry’s face. Harry bats it away, squawking with laughter. “Gross,” he says. “It’s all sticky.” 

“Yeah, but I have this boyfriend, see, and he totally gets off on doing my laundry, so it’s not _that_ gross,” Louis explains, fluttering his eyelashes. 

Harry flushes deeply, cheeks aching with the splitting width of his smile, burning because he’s in bed with the whole entire _sun_. “I’ll wash it tomorrow,” he says. 

Louis waggles his eyebrows. “I _bet_ you will.”


End file.
